


Lag Time

by mlle



Series: folk singers au [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Bands, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Punk, Background Eponine/Combeferre, Feelings, M/M, Marijuana, Minor Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Minor Eponine/Courfeyrac, Minor Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Rimming, Sex, Touring, brief mentions of addiction, brief mentions of off-screen transphobia; bullying; suicide statistics, folk singers au, it's really not a big deal, slight D/s undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:28:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlle/pseuds/mlle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Barricades Rise tour starts in Ft. Lauderdale on one of those gorgeously mild days that only coastal Florida can produce. The sun is bright but the wind off the Atlantic is fresh and cooling. It’s not too humid, not too hot, especially as Grantaire takes the stage in the early evening. The sun is setting, wrapping the fairgrounds and the crowd in warm golden light. It’s damn near perfect.</p><p>It’s also one of the worst days of Grantaire’s entire life.</p><p>Probably <em>the</em> worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ft. Lauderdale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goshemily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/gifts).



> aka the folk singers au ([bonus materials on tumblr](http://non.nonmodernist.com/tagged/les-mis-folk-singers-au))
> 
> the master playlist for the story can be found [here](http://open.spotify.com/user/alexandradit/playlist/0RU2sigwbln8Swp9zX8W9Z)
> 
> with massive thanks to [lane](http://ineveryending.tumblr.com/) for asking all the right questions

The Barricades Rise tour starts in Ft. Lauderdale on one of those gorgeously mild days that only coastal Florida can produce. The sun is bright but the wind off the Atlantic is fresh and cooling. It’s not too humid, not too hot, especially as Grantaire takes the stage in the early evening. The sun is setting, wrapping the fairgrounds and the crowd in warm golden light. It’s damn near perfect.

It’s also one of the worst days of Grantaire’s entire life.

Probably _the_ worst.

No, not probably. Definitely.

To start, he was late to pre-show because his stupid van needed oil, again, so he missed soundcheck entirely. The techs assured him he’d sound fine, but his guitar is up way too loud in his monitor. He can barely hear himself over the jolt of each acoustic string. Halfway through his second song, he motions for the sound guy to turn it down and gets so involved making himself understood that he forgets the lines to the third verse. He fumbles and does that awkward laugh, the one he hates hearing on his own live recordings, the one that screams _nervous loser_ when he’s really hoping his stage persona is more like _endearingly disarming_. 

And seriously? He’s been playing “My Full Glass” on the road for at least 8 years now, you’d think he could remember the words even when he’s juggling chords and hand motions and frantic head nodding and trying not to go deaf from the horrible overbearing twang.

Nice weather goes a long way towards endearing a crowd to a day-long roster of performers, but even that has its limits. The bobbled lines and the awkward laugh draw a displeased murmur from the crowd, and of course the sound guy cranks Grantaire’s monitor down just in time, so he hears it perfectly. And either the sound guy is completely incompetent or the universe just really has it in for Grantaire tonight, because fixing the monitor messes up his mic volume in the stacks. “Impossible” is usually a crowd favorite. Tonight, even the front row looks bored. He watches one group of kids wander away completely. The last flash of the sun lights on blond hair, a figure ducking behind the exiting audience members. Grantaire fumbles his finger placement, shakes his head, and just tries to get through the rest of the damn set.

He’s pretty sure it’s the universe. He’s not willing to rule out incompetence just yet, but the sound problems in no way explain the crush of people he has to wade through when he finally gets to step offstage. 

Everyone is first-night-of-tour buzzed, mingling and watching each other’s sets, slapping backs and squealing as they go for hugs. It’s all Grantaire can do to duck around the masses. He hears someone—probably Eponine—call his name just as he stumbles down the side stage steps and out into the night. He doesn’t stop. A quick look confirms what he feared, that the back way to the performer parking area is just as crowded. With a sigh, he turns and heads for the barrier that keeps the crowds away from the restricted section of the fairgrounds. He’ll cut through the main grounds themselves, he thinks, loop around to the parking lot, where his van and a handle of Evan Williams are waiting for him. 

The security guy positioned at the barrier gives him a nod as he ducks through. Grantaire’s pretty sure the guy’s name is Bahorel, and that they got extra drunk together one night about a year ago, on some other tour. He can’t quite remember, though, and he’s not in the mood to stop and ask.

It’s a quick walk around the fairgrounds. The crowd is starting to get dense, but Grantaire’s pretty sure he can cut right through the middle of the kids waiting for the next band to take the mainstage. He’s two-thirds of the way through the fanned-out crowd when the universe decides to step its game up. 

The floodlights and stage lights go dark at the same moment, and the crowd starts cheering like fucking crazy. “Shit,” Grantaire mutters to himself. He raises his elbows and steels himself to push through the rest of the crowd before things get any rowdier. He can see the clearing on the other side. He can see the parking lot.

And then the stage lights bathe the mainstage in red, illuminating three skinny guys in dark clothes. A kickdrum starts pounding, guitars start churning chords, and Grantaire stops dead in his tracks.

 _Definitely_ the worst day of his life.

Because onstage, right now, an unbearably hot blond is announcing, “Hey Florida, we’re Friends! and this song is called ‘The Old Soul of Every Fake Lake.’”

The crowd roars and surges as one. Grantaire stumbles into the girl in front of him. He feels her turn around and braces for her anger, but his eyes are locked on the stage. 

“Can’t look away, right?” She sounds like she’s smiling, not pissed at all.

Grantaire shakes his head. “What?” he shouts back.

“I said you can’t look away. I know the feeling. Friends! are incredible.”

They really are. The hot blond—Enjolras, Grantaire forces himself to think the name even though it twists his gut—is singing full-throated into the mic, mouth held up against it even as his body thrums with the guitar chords he’s slamming through. The bassist and drummer—Combeferre and Courfeyrac, Grantaire’s brain helpfully provides—grin at each other and the crowd while they hold the punishing rhythm of the song together. They all look alive with it, at ease and delighted in front of the crowd.

Grantaire finally forces his eyes to the girl. She’s small but she’s got her feet planted apart so the press of bodies can’t knock her over. She looks kind of fierce, but she is smiling. “They aren’t even supposed to be on this tour,” he chokes out.

“I know, we’re so lucky. Last minute addition, I heard.”

“Lucky.” Grantaire’s snort is lost in the din.

The girl leans in close and holds out her hand. “I’m Musichetta.”

“Oh! You’re on the lineup, you play with, um…“

She laughs. “The Rosa Luxemburg Experience, yeah. And you’re Grantaire, right?”

“Yeah.” They shake hands a little awkwardly in the limited space, bodies still angled toward the stage. 

“I missed your set today. But I swear I’m gonna catch it before the summer’s over.”

“That’s okay, today was pretty terrible.” Grantaire looks back to the stage. Friends! are all smiles as they plow through their song. They sound amazing. No monitor or mix problems on the mainstage, Grantaire thinks bitterly.

A bald guy pushes his way up next to them, and Musichetta steps to the side to bring him into their space. She leans in toward Grantaire again. “This is Bossuet, he’s in charge of our beats. Grantaire here was just telling me about his set today.”

Bossuet gives a small wave. “How was it?” he shouts just as Friends! finishes their song. The kids around them shoot their little group angry looks.

Grantaire pitches his voice lower. “Not great, actually.”

Bossuet laughs. “We’ve all been there. Bad shows are just my luck too.”

“All of today has been…” Grantaire gestures to the stage and the encroaching press of bodies with a rueful smile. “Not great.”

Bossuet claps him on the shoulder. “Well then,” he says with a glance to Musichetta. “Let’s go get drunk instead.”

Grantaire looks wildly to the stage, mouth forming a protest he doesn’t even want to make, but it’s useless. Musichetta grabs his hand with a look of scary delight. She tugs and Bossuet presses on his shoulder, and then they’re leading him out of the crowd, towards the parking lot he was so set on just a few minutes ago.

He throws a look back to where Friends! are presiding over the adoring crowd. 

This summer is going to suck.

 

—

 

Because they’ve got four members, The Rosa Luxemburg Experience’s label has sprung for an actual tour bus for them. Even better, the band has brought along a bunch of folding lawn chairs and set them up under the bus’s extendable awning. Grantaire takes a seat on one, with a beer from their huge cooler, as Musichetta settles down in Bossuet’s lap. The rest of the band had already been there, sprawled around, drinking in the beautifully mild night.

Grantaire takes a swig of the beer and swallows. “I like your chairs.”

“Thanks. Joly was worried about stewing in bus germs all day and night, so he demanded we bring them.”

“Fresh air is very important!” sputters a boy with shaggy hair, who Grantaire assumes is Joly. “Especially during a long tour like this, where we’ll all be running our immune systems ragged.”

Musichetta rolls her eyes. “Yes, yes. You’ve warned us all about the challenges of a marathon bout of touring already.”

Grantaire groans at the reminder. “This summer,” he pronounces, “is going to suck.”

“Aw, don’t say that. Aren’t you having fun drinking our beer?” Musichetta pointedly raises her own drink.

“I’d be having more fun if it were something stronger.”

An auburn-haired man speaks up. “I’ve got some Knob Creek in my bunk, but it’s not for just anyone. Who are you again?”

Musichetta answers before Grantaire can. “Feuilly, this is Grantaire. We rescued him from the crowd in front of the mainstage. Grantaire, the darling promising you bourbon right now is Feuilly. Our banjo player.”

“Ah, one of Musichetta’s lost souls. Nice to meet you. So, bourbon?”

Grantaire is already on his feet. “Yes, please.”

Drinks on the bus turn into drinks back outside in the chairs, which turns into just passing the bottle around as they talk and laugh. Grantaire is quiet, mostly, letting the bandmates chatter amongst themselves. Other people come and go, stopping for a beer or to say hi. Feuilly presides over the seemingly endless bottle of Knob Creek, bestowing sips upon newcomers as he sees fit. Maybe it’s a second bottle. Grantaire can’t remember. He can barely keep up with the laughter, the stream of people meeting or re-meeting each other, the happy hum of voices swapping jokes and plans and stories. He leans back in the lawn chair he’s staked out for himself and lets it all wash over him.

They’re joined in a little while by Eponine, who gives Grantaire shit for avoiding her earlier, and Cosette, who sits as primly as she can for a girl pouring screwtop wine into a plastic goblet. Grantaire introduces them all around and goes back to working on his buzz. It takes a lot for him to get drunk, but he’s decently on his way between the bourbon and the beer and the vodka he sips from Eponine’s cup. 

After the third stolen sip, she smacks his hand away. “Get your own!” Her mock indignation quickly turns to real concern, though, as Grantaire watches her peer at him closely. “R, hey. You’re pretty well toasted. Everything okay?”

He groans again and drops his head onto Eponine’s shoulder. He should’ve known she’d notice. “Bad show. Bad day.”

She combs her fingers through his hair. “That’s all?”

“And I saw him.”

“Who?”

Grantaire frowns. “Enjolras. Ugh. Apparently Friends! got added to the lineup at the last minute.” 

“Did he see you?”

A flash of blond hair ducking behind people fills Grantaire’s mind, but he’s too close to drunk to focus on it. “No, it was during their set.”

“Eesh. But you know, it’s been years since that tour. Maybe it’ll be okay.”

Grantaire shrugs, bumping his shoulder against Eponine’s side. “Maybe I can just hide in the van all summer and never run into him.”

“And leave me all alone with Cosette and Marius? I don’t think so.” Eponine throws back what’s left of her drink without jostling him. She’s very practiced at it. This is why Grantaire loves her. Loves her and wants the best for her, which doesn’t include skeezy boys who break her heart. Broke her heart. Whatever, verbs. Grantaire sits up to take another drink and then remembers what he was going to ask.

“You guys brought Marius?” Grantaire makes a face. “Why?”

“Someone has to run the merch table. And supervise Gavroche. Besides—” 

A loud cheer erupts and Eponine pauses. It takes Grantaire a moment to refocus on the larger group seated around them. The cheer was a greeting, it seems, as the others welcome a dark-haired boy in a hoodie into the mix. He plops down next to the pile formed by Musichetta, Bossuet, and Joly. Grantaire’s breath catches as he sees the boy’s bright grin and realizes it’s Courfeyrac. He drags his eyes up and sees Combeferre grabbing a drink and getting ready to settle in too. Their set must be over, Grantaire thinks a little fuzzily. But that means Enjolras could be right behind them.

As soon as he thinks it, Enjolras appears. His blond hair looks strangely clean and kind of fluffy for someone who just got off stage. Grantaire realizes he must have showered after their set. He isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting here drinking. But he is sure he’s close enough to drunk to know a bad idea when it walks into his field of vision.

Enjolras actually looks over at him, but Grantaire’s out of the lawn chair before he can see the disdain in Enjolras’s eyes. “I have to—I should go,” he says quietly, already pushing away from the group, from their distracted laughter and Enjolras’s frown.

If anyone calls after him, Grantaire doesn’t hear it.

 


	2. Orlando

The sun is just rising off the coast when Grantaire is jerked awake by the sound of a hand slapping repeatedly on his van window. He flounders for a moment, twisted in the sheets that have come untucked from beneath the tiny mattress thrown into the back of the van. His knee knocks against his small acoustic amp rig. “Oww, fuck,” he not quite howls. 

The hand starts slapping again.

“Oh my god, what?” Grantaire yells as he rights himself and throws open one of the back doors.

Eponine is standing outside with her hands on her hips. Her face is mostly obscured by giant sunglasses, but the set of her mouth is unimpressed. 

Grantaire dangles his legs out of the van and rests his head on the still-closed door. “I thought maybe you were the zombie apocalypse.”

“No such luck. The world lives on.” 

“Then go away and let me sleep.”

“Number 1: No. Number 2: You have a show tonight in Orlando. Number 3…” Grantaire notices the paper bag just as she opens the top and wafts it under his nose.

Grantaire takes a deep breath and practically moans. “Oh god, don’t tease me.”

“No tease. It’s for you. Marius got up early this morning to get us all breakfast,” Eponine explains as she hands the bag to Grantaire.

“I can occasionally see why you keep him around.” He fishes a huge sausage and egg biscuit from the bag and immediately takes a bite. It’s only barely hot, but the biscuit is fluffy and the sausage is just the right amount of greasy. Grantaire briefly considers forgiving Marius all his sins in the face of this biscuit.

Eponine huffs a little and elbows Grantaire out of the way so she can open the van’s still-closed back door. She sits and leans up against the side wall of the van, facing Grantaire. The toes of her Converse just barely poke his right thigh.

In between bites, Grantaire blinks and squints and tries to take stock of the parking lot in the quickly rising sun. It’s mostly empty now. The stage crews would’ve dismantled everything last night and driven it to Orlando to get set up before the gates open this afternoon. What a shit job, Grantaire thinks. Someone should buy them all sausage biscuits. 

Most of the performers’ buses are gone too—they have drivers to see them safely from tour stop to tour stop, so they’ll arrive on time no matter how late they’ve been up performing or partying. Only a few straggling buses remain, and a handful of vans and cars, full of fresh-faced bands who couldn’t afford buses and are in charge of getting themselves to each show. Grantaire is their boat this summer, too, after a disagreement with his former management about how drunk is too drunk to play a label showcase.

Eponine watches him eat for a moment, then clears her throat gently. “Bahorel says the second stage techs have your guitar, by the way. You left it yesterday.”

“Oh, shit.” Grantaire half turns to realize she’s right. Only his beat-up songwriting acoustic is laying in the back of the van.

“It’s okay, they’ll hold it for you, you can pick it up during soundcheck.”

Grantaire hums his assent through a mouthful of food. He swallows and looks over at Eponine.

She looks back, hard. “So where the fuck did you run off to last night?”

“Nowhere. Here. I just came back here so I could sleep.”

“You ran away from Enjolras and hid in your van instead of enjoying the first night of tour.”

“Yeah, well,” Grantaire snorts. “I’m sure I missed an unmissable night of fun. Was there an orgy? Ritual sacrifice to the gods of tour? Better booze?”

Eponine laughs and runs her hands through her long, dark hair. “Mm, not too far off.”

“Which part? The chanting and murder?”

She tips her head back against the window. “The orgy, of course.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Those kids with the chairs got more and more handsy as the night went on.” 

“Bossuet and Musichetta?” Grantaire asks. “I’m pretty sure they’re dating their accordion player. Joly?” Grantaire is impressed with his own ability to recall their names this early in the morning. And before coffee, no less. Which reminds him. “Did Marius bring coffee?”

“He did, but Gav insisted we leave most of it for our driver.”

“Ugh, what a disgustingly thoughtful teenager.” 

“Anyway,” Eponine says. “Finish gossiping with me. The triad got all public display-happy, I fielded questions about you all night, and after that Enjolras dragged bandmates away. I think he was offended by all the fun people were having.” She pulls her sunglasses down just enough to stare Grantaire down. “And by ‘people’ I mean not you and definitely not me.”

Grantaire is confused. “Wait, who asked about me?” 

“His drummer. Who is cute, by the way. And knows Marius somehow?”

“Courfeyrac?”

“Yeah. He remembered you from that tour you guys played on together. Said he was disappointed you bailed before you could distract Enjolras from being the fun police.”

Hearing the name makes Grantaire’s stomach twist again. “Well, I’m not,” he retorts. “I can’t deal with him, Ep. I cannot. He hates me and I cannot deal with it.”

“So you’re just going to avoid him all summer long?”

Grantaire looks at her hopefully from behind what’s left of his breakfast. “Yes?”

“No! You’re going to have to be around him at some point. It’s not that big of a tour.”

“There are like 20 bands, not to mention security, the road crew, techs. I’m pretty sure that’s enough of a buffer.”

Eponine shakes her head like she’s rolling her eyes particularly hard behind her sunglasses. “I don’t even see what the big deal is,” she says.

Grantaire drops his head and shoots her the most withering look he can manage with a mouth full of biscuit.

“Okay, fine. So you followed him around like a puppy and nipped rather violently at his heels for a whole tour a few years ago. So what?”

“Ughhhh,” Grantaire groans as he pushes her legs out of the van. “Go away. Go get on your bus.”

“Ungrateful.” Eponine doesn’t resist though, laughing as she uses the momentum of her swinging legs to stand up. “I can’t believe I brought you breakfast.”

“Marius brought me breakfast. You just delivered it.”

She gasps in mock offense. Grantaire fakes throwing the crumpled and grease-stained paper bag at her.

“Go catch your ride to Orlando. I’ll see you there.”

“You better,” she calls as she walks away. “Come see us tonight. 8:00 pm, mainstage!”

 

—

 

Grantaire texts Cosette while he lets the van warm up. _tell pontmercy thanks for bkfast_

 _I will!_ she answers almost immediately. _Don’t be late for soundcheck!! x_

He drops his phone on the passenger seat. The sun burns heavily just above the horizon, so Grantaire slides on the spare sunglasses Eponine had dropped on his dash a few days ago—back when they were still in New York—and heads out in search of coffee and the Central Florida Fairgrounds.

 

— 

 

Despite the best efforts of the turnpike, Grantaire is not late for soundcheck. He considers giving the board op an earful about yesterday’s show, but can’t bring himself to make another enemy so early in the summer. The techs, as promised, have his guitar. He owes them a drink, he thinks to himself as he tunes up. 

Soundcheck is painless. He’s done early enough to grab lunch from one of the foodtrucks before he has to be back to actually play his set. He takes his container heaped with samosas, vada pav, and chutney to the picnic area behind the second stage and eats. The tour buzzes all around him. Techs rush from tents to buses to the stage, while drums and the occasional chord filter from the huge speaker stacks out front. Back here barely any crowd noise gets through, a little oasis of not-quite-calm.

Grantaire passes what’s left of his food off to Bahorel, who’s just going on break. He chugs a water, chews some gum, and heads back over to the second stage to perform.

It goes much better today, thanks to actually soundchecking. The decent-sized audience is into it, doing the handclaps for “Impossible,” cheering at the suggestive lines in “Irma Says.” Grantaire can’t help but smile, rocking back and forth in place to the beat of his strumming. The crowd follows him right into the plaintive notes of “Love the Light,” reverently hushed as they watch and listen.

His nine songs are over fast, it feels like, and the appreciative applause buoys Grantaire up as he heads offstage. He’s got just enough time to stow his guitar and grab a shower at the fairground facilities before heading over to the mainstage to see Eponine and Cosette. 

He considers flashing his pass and getting a spot on the side of the stage to watch from, but it’s been a while since he’s gotten to see the girls play. There’s a little open space right beside the tent that houses the mainstage soundboard. Grantaire gets a PBR from a vendor and, with a nod to the sound guy, props himself up on the barrier next to the tent. Combeferre, standing on the other side, nods and raises his own beer. Grantaire nods back. He waits until Combeferre looks away to furtively check the crowd for the other members of Friends!, but they’re nowhere to be seen.  He sighs a little to himself and looks out over the heads of the audience to the stage. 

The lights come up on the Jondrettes and Grantaire can practically see the crowd take a collective breath. Eponine and Cosette have stage presence like nobody’s fucking business, and they’re a perfect study in contrasts: Cosette is pale and blonde, her white lace dress short but virginal above her cowboy boots, while Eponine’s black cutoff shorts, black cropped tee, and dark hair offset her tan skin. They pause at their mics just long enough for the crowd to take in the effect. Then, with an unspoken cue, Eponine begins to sing. Her voice is high and sweet, unwavering as always. She lays out the first short verse of their acapella opener. When she reaches the chorus, Cosette joins her, adding warmth and power with a close harmony. 

It’s kind of magical, Grantaire thinks, and he can tell from the crowd’s silence that they feel the same. Cosette and Eponine been singing together for so long that they breath as one. Their notes rise and fall together perfectly. They hold the final gentle tone for just a moment, and as soon as they’re done, hoots and cheers break out across the grounds. 

Only then do the girls pick up their guitars. While they adjust their straps, Cosette steps back up to her mic. “Thanks, y’all,” she drawls with a little exaggerated twang. “We’re the Jondrettes.”

Their tour drummer counts them off and they match his steady beat as they launch into the rest of their set. Grantaire knows their songs and their stage banter almost as well as he knows his own. Watching them sing about heartbreak and liquor is like visiting old friends, and he’s happy to lose himself in their traded jokes and bright laughs, strong voices and charmingly irreverent lyrics. 

He’s so distracted by the crowd’s delight at Cosette belting a string of impolite words that when Courfeyrac slides up beside him and drops a warm hand on his shoulder, he jumps and yelps. Just like, a little yelp.

Courf is smiling his adorable elf grin. “Sorry! Mind if I join you?” 

Grantaire knows from experience that it’s impossible to resist anything in the face of that grin. “Umm—“ he flounders.

“Great!” He leans right up next to Grantaire. “You left the party last night before we could catch up.”

Grantaire feels himself flush a little. “Yeah, I, uh. I had to…”

Courfeyrac waves his hand dismissively. “No big deal. We’ve got all summer, right?” He bumps his shoulder against Grantaire’s. “Besides, I made Eponine tell me how you’re doing. I didn’t realize you guys know Marius.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire nods cautiously. “How do you know Marius?”

“We used to be roommates. It was a while ago.”

Grantaire nods again and drains his beer.

Courfeyrac offers to go get him another. He slips out and back into the crowd in no time at all, still grinning brightly as he hands Grantaire another PBR. “So,” he says as he cracks the tab on his own beer, “tell me about Eponine. It’s only fair, since she told me all about you.” 

“What, uh, what do you want to know?”

Courfeyrac casts a quick look at Combeferre, who’s watching the show intently. He’s too far away to hear them, possibly hasn’t even noticed that Courfeyrac has attached himself to Grantaire’s side. “Start with the band. They’re incredible.”

Grantaire smiles at this. “Right? They’ve been singing together since they were kids. Got their first record deal as teenagers, haven’t looked back since.”

“Ahh, a music industry fairytale.”

Grantaire laughs sourly. “Yeah, but the Grimm’s kind. Things were kind of bleak before that.”

Courfeyrac’s brow furrows. “How so?” He looks concerned for the wellbeing of these two girls from years ago.

“Cosette was Eponine’s foster sister. Their parents kind of, well, sucked. I guess they were cheating the system, pocketing the cash for themselves or something.” He shrugs. “Then they heard Cosette and Ep sing, and they got this idea that they could put them on the stage, make a bunch of money. And they did, for a few years.” 

Onstage, Eponine has her eyes closed, singing with all her heart. Cosette plays guitar softly behind her.

“But their parents aren’t around now?” Courfeyrac prompts.

“No. When they got their first deal, the head of the label tweaked their contract. It provided their parents one big payout right at the start, but they didn’t notice they were signing away their rights to any of the girls’ future earnings. Cosette and Ep were lucky, you know? Usually it goes the other way, the label tries to screw you the hardest.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, I guess Valjean—he was the exec that signed them—I guess he felt responsible for them. He got them a really good manager, and even let them stay with him until they were legally adults. He’s kind of like their dad.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Courfeyrac looks over to Combeferre again, then back to Grantaire with an impish look. “And are they tour-single?”

“Tour… single?”

“You know, unattached and unencumbered for the duration of tour? Free to do as they please on the long, lonely nights on the road?”

Grantaire makes a face. “Is this about… are you, like, spying for Marius?”

“What? No, just curious. I have a great curiosity in me.” He cocks his head. “Why, is there something up with Marius?”

“Oh jesus, never mind.” Grantaire drops his head into his hand. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget that I did.”

Courfeyrac wants to press the topic, Grantaire can tell, but just then a hesitant female voice cuts in. “Excuse me, aren’t you…?” Grantaire blinks. She’s looking, not at Courfeyrac, but at him. Right at him. “Oh my god, you are,” she continues. “I’m such a huge fan. I saw your show earlier, you were amazing."

“Uh, thanks.”

“Are you gonna be here for a while?” she asks. “I’ve been trying to find a decent place to watch the rest of the lineup. Do you mind if I hang out here?”

Grantaire looks to Courfeyrac, who shrugs. “I guess not,” he answers her.

“Ahh, this is so cool! Thank you.” She leans on the other side of Grantaire, who kicks himself mentally. He’s now stuck between a stranger and a conversation he has no interest in finishing, but he promised Ep he’d stay to see their whole show. And he’s out of beer again.

Courf sneaks away to buy them yet another round, and when he returns, he strikes up a conversation with the girl who has joined them. They chat and drink and enjoy the music, and Grantaire eventually gets pulled into their small talk. It’s not unpleasant. Courfeyrac flirts shamelessly with the girl, whose name Grantaire never did catch. She laughs and flirts back a little, but never moves away from where she’s leaned close to Grantaire. She’s pretty enough, he thinks, and finds himself not looking away as she quite obviously tracks his mouth with her eyes. He’s not really interested—it’d be too much work to try to fuck her, he tells himself—but with Courf as a buffer, and the beer and the music, it’s nice to just feel her attraction. 

The Jondrettes finish their set and come back out to do their version of Dinah Washington’s “Drinking Again” for an encore. The girl next to Grantaire has been getting bolder as she gets more buzzed. She reaches out jokingly to straighten a piece Grantaire’s hair, and he ducks his head and then freezes.

Enjolras has appeared next to Combeferre and is silently watching the stage. Grantaire tries to shift away from the girl but she’s basically pressed right up against his side now. Maybe, he thinks wildly, maybe Enjolras won’t come over.

The song ends. The crowd roars their approval. Enjolras comes over.

He barely even looks at Grantaire. Instead he leans into Courfeyrac and says something quietly. Courf nods and turns to them. “Duty calls, the stage awaits, et cetera. It was nice to meet you,” he adds to the girl with a wink. Then he, Enjolras, and Combeferre troop away towards backstage. Grantaire watches them leave, watches how Enjolras doesn’t even seem to see him, or the girl.

She smiles at Grantaire. 

“I need to follow them, actually,” he stutters out, and slips away before she can react.  

He trails in Enjolras’s wake, but veers off from the steps to the mainstage and retreats instead, again, to the performers’ parking lot, where his van waits like slightly stuffy oasis.

He texts Eponine quickly so she won’t come looking for him later. _you sounded great tonite. coffee tmrw? x_

 _okay_ , she sends back.

Grantaire digs out his bottle of Evan Williams from underneath a pile of clothes. He pours several ounces into a clean-looking plastic cup and winces at the pleasant burn of his first sip. It’s warm in the van, even though the sun is down, so he cracks the windows and strips down to his boxers. It’s early—bands aren’t even done for the night, Friends! still has their show to play—but he’s exhausted from Eponine’s sunrise wake up call.

He stares at the ceiling for a while. There’s a song he’s been trying to write, and it scratches at his mind now. Eventually he sits back up, downs some more whiskey, and picks up his guitar. His fingers try to pick out the notes in his head, but they can’t keep up. He flexes them, hums a moment, tries again. 

It’s not right.

Grantaire huffs out a breath and sets the guitar aside. The alcohol feels like a weight on his chest and neck, pushing him down into his own tiredness. He flops back onto the little mattress without bothering to straighten the sheets. 

The sound of crickets enters through the slightly open windows, surprisingly loud. Underneath that, he thinks he can hear the occasional cheer, snatches of drums. It might be Friends! onstage right now, he tells himself. It might be Enjolras they’re cheering for.

He closes his eyes and tries to bring up the image of the girl from earlier. Should he have fucked her? He would’ve had to bring her back here. Could’ve fucked her while Friends! rallied their fans into a passionate, moshing fervor. Politics in the pit, Grantaire thinks, and snorts derisively to himself. He could’ve stayed put, let that girl’s hands wander while he watched Enjolras up on the stage.

His dick finally stirs. He pushes away any thought of what that might mean and slides his hand into his boxers. He’s only half-hard, but he wraps his fingers around himself, stroking and pulling as the blood pools. He thinks about that girl again. Is he an asshole for not getting her name? He doesn’t really care, he realizes. He thinks of the last person he hooked up with after a show—he hates the word ‘groupie,’ thinks it’s terribly demeaning. The last person was some pretty guy with green eyes and a name like a Parisian neighborhood. Grantaire remembers the guy’s stellar blowjob skills and speeds his hand up. 

It had been a seriously great blowjob in a sketchy as fuck bathroom, Grantaire with his hands sunk in the guy’s dark hair. He fixes it in his mind, tries to remember exactly how the mouth on his dick felt. He pauses a second to lick his palm, then starts again, gripping tight and twisting his wrist at the top of every stroke. It’s not the same but he concentrates, tries to imagine the different sensation. His eyes are clenched tight, still holding the image of the bathroom, the guy on his knees, Grantaire’s calloused fingers gripping his skull. 

In a few minutes, he’s close to coming, feels his balls start to tighten, and then the image in his mind shifts. Light hair replaces dark, and steely blue eyes look up. 

Grantaire starts, shudders, comes. 

The releasing tension is immediately replaced by a wave of revulsion.

He scrubs his clean hand over his face and through his hair. His sheet is twisted up and slightly sweaty where it was stuck underneath his back, and he tugs the corner of it out to wipe himself off. Then he rearranges his boxers and curls into himself, presses his face into his pillow, and hopes as hard as he can for sleep.

 


	3. Gainesville

In the morning, Grantaire shuffles back into his jeans, fishes a clean t-shirt from his overflowing duffel bag, and goes for his promised coffee date and debrief with Eponine. He resolutely does not think about the night before, nor the last minute bait and switch his traitorous mind pulled on him. 

It’s a long enough haul to their next stop in Atlanta that the booking manager has scheduled a day off for the bands. While the stage and sound crews are already gone, the parking lot is still full of buses. Grantaire picks his way through the haphazardly parked behemoths. He’s just spotted the Jondrettes’ bus when a ratty teenaged boy materializes from another aisle of the makeshift vehicle village. 

Without slowing his pace, Gavroche tosses Grantaire a set of keys. “Feel free to make use of the facilities,” he says as Grantaire fumbles to catch them. “We’ll be at the picnic area when you’re done.” He hangs a left between another bus and an equipment trailer.

“Thanks,” Grantaire calls after him, but he’s already disappeared from sight.

Grantaire lets himself onto the empty bus. The bathroom is tiny but blissfully clean—at Cosette’s insistence, he’s sure. He quickly strips and showers, thankful for the delicious-smelling soap that washes away the last traces of what he’s still absolutely not thinking about. 

Clean and dressed again, he locks the bus behind him and heads for the picnic area behind the now disasssembled and removed second stage. A lot of people have had the same idea, it seems, and the tables are crowded with performers and other crew members, eating and talking in the sun. 

Gav whistles and gestures Grantaire over to the table they’ve staked out. Grantaire tosses him back the bus keys and takes a seat across from Eponine, who hands him a huge to-go cup of coffee. 

“Bless everything about you,” he says to the table by way of good morning. 

Eponine and Gavroche are in the midst of an argument about something Grantaire can’t quite make out, and they get back into it as he sips his coffee. At the end of the table, Marius hunches over his laptop, entering numbers into a spreadsheet. Cosette looks up from her phone. “Hey,” she says with a smile. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Fine,” Grantaire shrugs. “You sounded great last night,” he offers in hopes of changing the subject. 

“Thanks. It felt good. But I’m still not sure about the way we’re doing the bridge of ‘Very Nearly Weeping.’ It seemed like it dragged last night.”

Here, at least, Grantaire is on firmer ground. He and Cosette work through the song as best they can without a guitar. Gav and Eponine move on other arguments, and eventually Marius finishes typing and closes his laptop. 

Collectively, the five of them discuss what they should do with their day off. There’s talk about going to Disney World, but then Courfeyrac and Bossuet stop by, with Enjolras in tow, to tell them that Friends! have booked a show in Gainesville that night and invited The Rosa Luxemburg Experience to open. 

“It’ll be a triumphant homecoming!” Courfeyrac announces grandly. 

Grantaire snorts. “You’ve only been gone for two days.” Courf flashes him a wounded look, but it only eggs him on. “Can your town really not be without you for 48 hours? Does capitalist hegemony run rampant without you there to beat it back with your instruments? Do the poor punk children of Gainesville wander the streets, tearing their hair, forgetting to eat organic, letting traveler kids go without couches to sleep on,” he feigns a look of horrified realization, “buying their books on Amazon?”

Courfeyrac pouts prettily. “And here I thought you loved us. We were going to offer you our couch and everything.”

“Oh, well,” Grantaire deadpans. “How could I refuse such magnanimity? Such—” In a flash, Eponine comes across the table to slap her hand over Grantaire’s mouth.

“We’ll be there,” she says.

Enjolras frowns as Courf laughs and herds them on to the next table. With a shake of his head, Grantaire dislodges Eponine’s hand.

“You don’t have to be so contrary, you know,” she says as she lowers herself back to her seat. “Even if Enjolras does hate you like you insist that he does.”

“I take it back,” Grantaire says. “He doesn’t hate me. He can’t think outside himself for the 5 seconds it would take.”

“And that’s worse somehow?”

“Yes! I mean, no, it’s…” Grantaire deflates. “I don’t know.”

Marius pats him sympathetically on the back, which only makes Grantaire feel worse. He thunks his head onto the table. “I’m gonna need so many drinks tonight.”

 

—

 

They reconvene in front of the brightly colored bar at the High Dive in Gainesville. It is, indeed, a triumphant homecoming for Friends!, and the venue is already crowded by the time Grantaire, Eponine, and Cosette arrive. Marius has been left in charge of Gavroche back on the bus, which is parked at a truck stop just on the edge of town. 

Combeferre comes from the backstage hallway and meets them at the bar. “Drink tickets?” he offers with a smile. “They always give us more than we need.”

Drinks in hand, the group angles for a spot closer to the front. Combeferre pulls out a seat at one of the tall tables for Cosette, then one for Eponine. He leans in close to Ep, asking her something about the session guys they have on tour with them. And with that, the two of them are off, talking intensely about instrumentation and the mainstage sound mix.

Grantaire nurses his drink and watches the people at the bar. Courf holds court in another corner with a group of people Grantaire doesn’t know. Locals, he guesses.

Enjolras appears beside their table in a flash of red plaid. “So you did come,” he says abruptly.

Grantaire chokes a little and sets his glass down carefully. He shoots Ep a look, but she and Cosette are explaining something to Combeferre in tandem. Grantaire looks back to Enjolras. “Well,” he starts. “I’d hate to miss the opportunity to watch you minister to your flock.”

Enjolras sighs and looks away.

“Sorry,” Grantaire winces. “That’s not how I meant that. Yes, I came. I didn’t have much choice.” He nods in Eponine’s direction.

“Look, I know you hate our music—”

“I never said that,” Grantaire interrupts. 

“Then what?”

“We’ve been over this, multiple times as I recall. It’s your mission I find suspect.” Grantaire shrugs.

Enjolras’s nostrils flare. “The stage is a platform,” he says grandly. “We have a responsibility to our community, to educate our listeners, expose them to messages they wouldn’t hear anywhere else.”

“No, we have a responsibility to sell records. That’s all our labels want from us. It’s called commercialism, maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“We reject the mindset that—”

Grantaire scoffs before Enjolras can even finish. “Yeah right. Call me when you _reject_ the advance for your next record. Call me when you start giving all your music away for free and live completely at the whims of the gift economy.”

“That’s big talk, considering I don’t see you doing the same.”

“Because I can admit this is just a business. Besides, not all of us have such a big safety net. Even if your precious community did desert you, mommy and daddy wouldn’t let you starve. I need every penny the label sees fit to throw me—and playing afternoon slots on the second stage is a far cry from headlining.”

“You could be headlining,” Enjolras says. “You could be making a difference, instead of taking sexual advantage of whatever fans throw themselves in your path.”

It feels like someone punched Grantaire in the gut. “I didn’t,” he says. “I don’t.”

“You have,” Enjolras presses. “I toured with you. I remember.”

Onstage, The Rosa Luxemburg Experience has taken their places. Bossuet presses a button on a tiny Casio keyboard and a thumping beat fills the bar. 

“I have to go warm up,” Enjolras says flatly, and walks away.

Joly’s accordion wheezes to life. At the mic, Musichetta stands with her feet planted wide, short legs filling out her cutoff shorts, a t-shirt proclaiming “Ishmael <3 Queequeg” stretched tight across her chest. Like a funeral oration she intones, “Shamed, dishonored, wading in blood and dripping with filth, thus capitalist society stands.” Joly presses keys, Feuilly picks strings, and they enter the song one beat apart from each other. Everything is strangely discordant until Joly grins toothily and corrects himself, and then everything is perfectly discordant and sharp. 

Grantaire lets the jagged sounds wash over him and fill up the aching spot in his gut. At the other end of the table, Combeferre runs a hand through his messy hair and watches Eponine watch the band.

It’s nearly impossible to talk over Musichetta’s belting voice, which spans from little girl seriousness to full-powered ironic yell. Her notes aren’t always perfect but the band’s raw enthusiasm and strange sonic combinations are irresistible. 

Grantaire finishes his drink, and Cosette tugs him close to says loudly into his ear, “Shots?” He nods. They trip their way to the bar and order six total: two each for themselves, which Cosette demands they do right there, and two to bring back to Combeferre and Eponine. 

Courfeyrac has stopped by the table when they get back. He waits for a break between songs and then asks the group if they think Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta would consider letting him join them one night.

“Onstage?” Cosette asks.

“In bed,” Courf answers.

“It never hurts to ask,” Grantaire offers.

Courfeyrac’s response is lost as the band launches into their final few songs. He ruffles Grantaire’s hair and leaves the table to head backstage. Combeferre excuses himself as well. Cosette elbows Eponine in the ribcage and gets a withering look in return. 

The Rosa Luxemburg Experience ends their set with a great crash and clash of sounds—Grantaire hadn’t realized accordions could outro riff like that—and Musichetta bows deeply before they leave the stage. 

Cosette gets them another round of shots, two each again. Grantaire still isn’t sure he’s buzzed enough for what’s about to happen. 

Techs trade out instruments and pedals. The bar ripples with conversation and drunken laughter. 

Grantaire drinks steadily in defiance of his accelerating heartbeat. 

Before long, the lights go down, but the band doesn’t appear. Instead, a gorgeous boy with sideburns and full lips steps out. His name, he tells the crowd a little shyly, is Jean Prouvaire, and the band has asked him to read a couple poems to warm up the crowd. The bar noise doesn’t settle down entirely, but several people perk up and nod expectantly, like they were waiting for this. 

College towns, Grantaire thinks. Fucking weird.

But Jean Prouvaire’s shy voice turns powerful—manly—as he starts to read from the sheaf of papers in his hands. Grantaire can’t follow the meaning but the words sound musical, syllables shaping an interesting rhythm. Cosette and Eponine whisper to each other, but Grantaire just lets himself listen.

The reading lasts about 10 minutes. Then the stage is bathed in Friends!’s signature red glow, and Grantaire has to grip the table tightly to steady himself. 

Enjolras has shed his plaid button-up. He strides onstage in black skinny jeans and a faded black t-shirt that looks soft and nearly worn through. Grantaire dimly notes that Combeferre has set his beer bottle next to his pedal and Courfeyrac has climbed behind his drum kit, but try as he might, he can’t take his eyes off Enjolras’s obnoxious hotness. 

They open with an older song—a classic, judging by the way the entire bar cheers and leans into the music. Enjolras’s steady, slightly rough voice is punctuated by ebullient drum flourishes, while the kids at the front of the crowd start swaying and pressing into each other, just a shade away from full-on body slams. 

From there, the set goes even further back in their catalog, back to the days when Enjolras and Combeferre wrote songs that traded off shouty political tirades between the two of them. Enjolras sneers through a song about Florida’s sugar plantations and the romanticized history of racial violence. The lyrics are too direct to be interesting or compelling, Grantaire thinks with a grimace, but he still can’t look away. 

In the sunlight that morning, Enjolras had looked carved out of stone—a marble Apollo with his gaze fixed on the middle distance. Onstage, Grantaire thinks with heat, Enjolras is all too real: flushed, sweating, with forearms that flex strongly and a bare throat that works with every sung or shouted syllable. 

Combeferre takes a long pull on his beer between songs as Enjolras thanks the crowd. “We’re doing this tour this summer,” he tells them. “Catching up with old friends, hopefully making some new ones. Spreading social justice and the DIY spirit across the states.” Boys in the front raises their fists and whoop. “But Gainesville, our hearts are always here with you.” More cheers. Enjolras’s voice rises fervently. “We know where we stand and on whom we can count. So here’s one just for you.” In perfect sync, the band slams into their next song.

The open floor erupts into a moshpit, as kids joyously throw themselves against one another. That riotous spark burns brightly for the last songs of the set, which they play through without stopping. Grantaire feels it peak and then ebb, as Friends! leave the stage and the patrons flow out of the bar. He, Cosette, and Eponine hold their spot at the table, an island amidst a stream of excited, drunk, and bruised kids. 

They hold there until Friends! finishes loading out and Courf comes to get them, promising an “intimate afterparty” that they won’t want to miss. 

After they settle their tabs, Courf leads them, tour guide style, to one of the punk houses a few blocks from the High Dive. It currently serves as Friends! headquarters, he informs them, throwing the battered screen door open to let them inside.

The intimate afterparty, it turns out, consists of Combeferre, Feuilly, and the poet kid from earlier, who Courf now introduces as Jehan. The three of them are seated earnestly around the coffee table, arguing about Audrey Hepburn as they pass around a glass pipe. Enjolras looks on impassively, leaned up against the wall that opens to their hallway. 

Ever the gentleman, Combeferre rises immediately to find the newcomers drinks from the kitchen and chairs from his room at the end of the hall. Eponine settles herself on the couch next to him and they resume their conversation from the bar. Grantaire tucks himself into the opposite corner of the couch, faced mostly away from Enjolras and his long-legged lean. He tells himself, firmly, that he is only imagining Enjolras’s gaze on the side of his face.

The Audrey Hepburn conversation had been, it turns out, about the relative merits of _My Fair Lady_ in an adaptational sense, and Cosette weighs in ardently—“let’s just be real, it takes balls to do what Rodgers and Hammerstein called impossible”—after taking a hit from the repacked pipe. She passes it to Grantaire, who drags deeply but has fuck all to say about movie musicals.

After a while, the conversation turns to Jehan’s poems. He is, they learn, an MFA student at the university, currently working on his creative thesis. “Returning classicism to the New York school,” he explains. “Hepburn by way Ashbery by way of Ovid.” 

Grantaire has no idea what he means. He leans his head back and pours his drink down his throat.

Courfeyrac has pulled Jehan into a tight hug, smashing their faces together. “I wish you were coming with us for the summer,” he says into Jehan’s sideburn.

“Me too.”

“Why can’t you?” Cosette asks.

“Work, money, amusement, all the quotidian concerns. What would I do on a rock tour?”

“Perform, of course. Read your poems.”

Jehan laughs sweetly. “Would that I could.”

Cosette flourishes her phone with a drunken wobble and begins to type. 

Combeferre and Eponine retreat to the kitchen for more drinks. Grantaire sits up and sets his empty bottle on the coffee table. He turns his head to the hallway, but Enjolras is nowhere to be seen.

“He does that,” Courfeyrac says. 

Grantaire frowns. “Does what?”

“Goes to bed without saying goodnight.”

From the floor, Cosette checks her phone and lets out a tiny squeal. “You’re on the tour,” she tells Jehan. “You have 20 minutes between bands on the second stage each day. If you want it. No pressure.”

Jehan’s face is excited but mystified. “Seriously? How on earth…?”

“We know people. I pulled strings.”

Everyone looks at her, a little dumbfounded.

“You know how our label is sponsoring the tour? Well. The CEO is kind of my dad.” She shrugs with a bit of embarrassment. “So you’re on the tour if you want to be.”

“You’re an angel,” Jehan tells her.

Grantaire feels the couch dip as Combeferre and Ep return. His eyes have slipped shut, the hour and the alcohol and the earlier anxiety taking its toll. The conversation goes on around him for a little while. It’s comforting, to be surrounded by friends and not have to speak. Grantaire feels himself lulled a little, not sleeping but not far from it. 

Eventually Eponine spreads a blanket over him, and he kicks his legs out to roll over.

Courfeyrac laughs. “I told you we’d let you take the couch. We’ll take the party to the porch.”

 

—

 

Grantaire wakes with a small jolt a while later. The house is dark now, all the bedroom doors closed. Someone has left him water, which he gulps gratefully. 

He shifts around on the couch. Enjolras’s couch, he thinks as he turns over, and tries not to freak out. Does it smell like Enjolras? He breathes into the pillow.

It smells like pillow.

His shirt has ridden up uncomfortably in the night, so he tugs it back into place. The fabric shifts loudly in the nighttime quiet. Grantaire lies as still as possible, breathing steadily, wondering if he’ll be able to sleep again.

A moan, soft but unmistakable, filters through the wall.

Grantaire turns again, lets his shifting body rustle the sheets and creak the couch.

Another moan, a thump, and then laughter.

Oh my god, Grantaire thinks from where he is now frozen in place. His ears strain for further sounds, even as he knows he doesn’t want to hear them.

He feels himself get half-hard in his pants. 

The next moan is loud enough to be clearly discerned as female.

Grantaire rolls over, again, and burrows under the pillow. There are only two logical options for females moaning on the other side of that wall, he knows. And given Marius and Cosette’s awkward, protracted, and still unconsummated courtship, there’s only one option that actually makes sense. Grantaire loves Eponine, and he’ll be thrilled to hear that she had some fun, but he does not actually want to hear her have that fun. Especially not when he is lying, fully clothed, on Enjolras’s couch. 

He counts his breaths into the pillow on top of his face that only smells like pillow, and eventually, thankfully, falls back asleep.

 

—

 

Morning floods sunlight through Grantaire’s eyelids and a distinctly hangoverish feeling through his brain. He uses the bathroom as quietly as possible and gets ready to slip out when his phone chimes.

 _Wait for me?_ the text from Eponine reads.

He’s putting his shoes on when she tiptoes out, closing a door softly behind her.

The center door.

She pushes her sunglasses onto her face and texts something quickly, angry fingers stabbing at her phone. 

“Can I ride with you to Atlanta?” she whispers. “The bus went without me.”

 


	4. Atlanta

Gainesville to Atlanta is a straight shot up I-75 with little to look at besides green grass and greener scrubby pines. Later today, the Friends! bus will make the same drive, but Grantaire and Eponine had managed to sneak out of their house before any of them got up. In the shady early morning, the house itself had appeared to be in total disrepair, paint peeling, palmettos choking the driveway with unruly abandon. Lifestyle choice, Grantaire had thought sourly, as he and Eponine retraced their steps to the bar parking lot, where the van was waiting.

Now its muffler rattles underneath the sound of the radio. Eponine, coffee clutched tightly in her hand, props her feet on the dashboard and hides behind her sunglasses. Grantaire isn’t sure if she sleeps or not, but she doesn’t speak until they’ve crossed the state line into Georgia. 

“I know you want to ask me about it,” she says out of nowhere. “I can practically hear you thinking about it over there.”

Grantaire plays dumb. “About what?”

“Last night. This morning. Why I’m currently nursing my hangover in your passenger seat instead of peacefully sleeping in my bunk.”

“Nah. You’ll tell me when you want to tell me.”

“Maybe I won’t,” Eponine mumbles. She turns her head away and looks out the window.

They stop for drive-thru burgers a couple of hours later. “Welcome to Cordele,” a wooden sign reads. “Watermelon Capital.” A half-moon of wood painted cheerfully to approximate a watermelon slice adorns the top. Grantaire stares at it as they eat silently.

Burger consumed, Grantaire pulls back onto the highway and says, “Should we play a roadtrip game or something? I’m wasting away with only the radio for company.”

Ep just sighs.

“Okay, I take back what I said. Your sadness is too great. It must be relieved. Share your burden with me, dear one.”

She punches him, not hard, on the arm. 

“Seriously, Ep. Are you okay?”

“I could be asking you the same question,” she finally says.

“Why, because I spent the night in Enjolras’s house listening to someone else have sex?”

“Oh my god.” Eponine drops her head into her hands. “You could hear us?”

Grantaire nods. “And I gotta say, I was a little surprised about which door you exited this morning.”

“Yeah,” Eponine agrees, but doesn’t elaborate.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I definitely thought Combeferre was expressing some interest.”

“He kissed me in the kitchen.”

“So what the fuck happened?”

“I panicked.”

“You panicked and slept with his roommate instead?” Grantaire asks skeptically.

“Yes?”

“Oh god, how drunk were you?”

Eponine shakes her head. “Not very, actually. We stayed up late, I sobered up.”

“So this isn’t like a consent issue, right?”

“No. Trust me. I knew what I was doing.”

Grantaire shoots her a look. “What exactly were you doing?”

“In the words of my therapist, self-sabotaging.”

“Your therapist sounds way smarter than you.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Eponine scowls. 

The car in front of Grantaire slows down pitifully. He pauses, checks his mirrors, and passes it with all the meagre pickup his poor van can muster. Eponine pulls out her phone and starts typing. 

“Sorry, bad joke,” Grantaire says after a moment. 

“It’s fine, I make a great target. Just ask Cosette and Marius.”

“Is that who you’re texting?”

Eponine brandishes her phone. “Cosette is concerned I won’t be at my vocal best tonight,” she says bitterly, “while Marius is concerned that I’ve upset Cosette so badly that she actually left me behind.”

“Was she pissed last night when she left?”

“No! She was just tired. I told her I’d get a ride with you if I needed to. And then she left, and Jehan left to go pack, and Feuilly left, and then Combeferre said he was tired and needed to go to bed.” She takes a breath. “And then it was just me and Courf…”

“And then you made a bad decision,” Grantaire adds. “Or, at least a questionable one.”

Eponine bites her lip. “At least I made one.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

Grantaire flicks his turn signal, passes another car. The pine trees are straight and tall, just standing there as the van rattles past. “Was it at least good sex?” he asks with a smirk.

“Oh my god.” Eponine sinks further into the seat, pressing her bent knees together. “You have no idea. I’m actually pretty sure I left my body at one point.”

Grantaire’s eyebrows raise. “Do you think it’s going to be weird between you guys now?” He imagines spending the rest of the summer with Eponine, ducking all of Friends! at every turn. It doesn’t sound fun. It doesn’t sound possible.

“I don’t know,” she says.

Grantaire pats her knee. “Courf is a good person. I think he’s still friends with everyone he’s ever had sex with.”

“Wait,” Eponine says, and turns in her seat to face him. “Why does it matter to you? Yesterday you didn’t even want to go to their show.”

“It matters,” Grantaire replies with a frown, “because I don’t want you to be unhappy all summer, Ep.”

“And it has nothing to do with your horrible crush hangover on Enjolras?” she demands.

Grantaire feels himself flinch. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hey, this is me. I get hopeless pining,” she says, flopping back into her seat. “Just like, try to make sure you’re pining because someone is unavailable, instead of making someone unavailable with all your pining.”

“Enjolras _is_ unavailable. The unavailable-est. There is no room for the finer feelings in Enjolras’s walled-off faux-punk utopia.”

She smiles as she shakes her head. “My therapist is smarter than you too, you know.”

“What?”

“Just try to be a little nicer to him.”

Grantaire snorts. “He’s never nice to me.”

“He let you sleep on his couch, didn’t he?”

“He ignored me all night,” Grantaire points out. 

“You called him spoiled. And a sell out,” Eponine responds.

“I’ve called him worse.”

She gives him a long look. “Yeah. You should probably apologize some day.”

 

—

 

The gates are just opening when Grantaire and Eponine arrive at the day’s fairgrounds. A line of cars headed for the main parking lot backs up traffic, but eventually they veer off and pull around into the performer parking lot. Grantaire pulls Ep into a long hug before sending her off to find the Jondrettes’ bus. 

They’ve given him an earlier timeslot today, and the set is a little lackluster but fine. Afterwards, Grantaire sticks around and watches a couple of the next bands. He turns over Eponine’s words in his head. He stands by what he’d told her about Courf—if anyone can keep it from getting weird after an ill-advised but enjoyable hook-up, it’s definitely him. Then, like something falling from a great height right on top of him, Grantaire realizes: that might not be the only weirdness that gets in the way of them all having an enjoyable summer. 

He needs to talk to Enjolras.

Grantaire has no idea what their bus looks like, but he heads back to the parking lot anyway. Maybe he’ll just run into him, or spot someone who can point him in the right direction. 

He wanders around between backstage and the bus village for a while to no avail. Finally, Bahorel appears. Grantaire flags him down. He’s got a radio clipped to the pocket of his cargo shorts and he seems like he’s in a hurry, but he pauses long enough for Grantaire to catch up. “By any chance,” Grantaire asks, “do you know what the Friends! bus looks like?”

“Sure,” Bahorel answers. “Black with Florida plates, probably parked near the entrance.” He indicates his radio. “It sounded like they pulled in not too long ago.”

“Thanks,” Grantaire tells him, and turns back around.

“Drinks soon?” Bahorel calls out after him.

“Only if you promise we won’t get stopped by the cops this time,” Grantaire calls back.

He finds the bus and knocks before he can talk himself out of it. He thinks, in the moment just after knocking, that he wishes he’d gotten a drink or two before he came to do this. But it’s too late to back out now.

The door opens with a jerk, revealing Enjolras in a faded tshirt and ragged cutoffs. He looks unfairly well-rested and as beautiful as always.

“Um, hi,” Grantaire begins. 

“Courfeyrac’s not here,” Enjolras replies sharply. He keeps a hand on the bus door.

“That’s okay, I was actually hoping I could talk to you.” Grantaire feels his hands shake a bit. He thrusts them in his pockets.

Silently, Enjolras steps aside to let Grantaire in.

The bus is ridiculously small on the inside. The door opens onto the kitchen area, and the cramped hallway beyond that contains six unbelievably small bunks. The door to the back lounge has been slid open, and Grantaire sees a glimpse of a couch back there. Enjolras takes two steps backwards and leans against the tiny kitchen counter. “What?” he says coldly.

Grantaire takes a deep breath. Now that he’s here, he has no idea what he wants to say. “Um.”

Enjolras just waits.

“It has been brought to my attention that I wasn’t particularly kind to you last night,” he starts. “And I wanted to come and—”

“Spare me the apology.”

“What?”

Enjolras crosses his arms in front of him. “You came to apologize. Spare me. I don’t want it.”

“I- I didn’t actually,” Grantaire stutters. Frustration, the same frustration he always feels in Enjolras’s presence, starts to rise. “I have nothing to apologize for. I just came to tell you that I have no desire to let our—,” he waves a shaky hand between them, “our animosity make this tour weird or awful for our friends. I hoped you would agree.” He takes a breath. “I’m asking for a cease fire, I guess. As it seems increasingly unlikely that we’ll be able to avoid each other all summer.”

 Enjolras seethes. “You’d rather avoid us, though. You made that clear yesterday.”

“That’s not true,” Grantaire protests.

“You hate our band,” Enjolras tells him. “You hate what we believe in. I still don’t know why you were there.”

Grantaire throws his hands up in defeat. “I love your stupid band, okay? Even if I don’t agree with what you think is possible. I love watching you, watching what you incite. You light crowds on fire, Enjolras, you wreak havoc. It’s fucking incredible. And you believe every single word of what you say. You’re absolute, and you’re dangerous as hell, and for whatever fucking reason, I can’t get enough of it. I watched you guys every night on that tour we did together. Every night.”

Across from him, Enjolras scrubs a hand through his messy blond hair. He looks at Grantaire for a long moment. 

Grantaire feels himself flush under the weight of that gaze. He wants to escape but he is fixed in place. He closes his eyes instead.

“Did you fuck my drummer?” Enjolras asks quietly. 

“Did I- what?” Grantaire’s eyes snap back open to find Enjolras watching him guardedly.

“Did you,” he repeats slowly, “fuck my drummer?”

“Of course not.”

“I heard sounds,” Enjolras says, awkward even in his coldness. “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

Grantaire balks. “If you don’t already know, then it’s none of your business. Why don’t you just ask Courfeyrac?”

“I’m asking you.”

“And I’m the logical choice, of course, since you already think I’m such a slut.”

Enjolras takes an angry step forward, halving the small distance between them. “I never said that.”

Grantaire bristles. “You implied it pretty clearly,” he spits out. He feels his frustration rising again, verging on anger. “And yeah, I might occasionally sleep with someone who happens to listen to my music, but I definitely didn’t have sex with Courfeyrac. Why the hell would I—” Grantaire stops himself short. His heart races, every muscle crying out to run or throw a punch, but he can’t. He can only stand there.

Enjolras steps closer still. “Why would you what?” he asks hotly. 

Grantaire’s eyes lock with his. It feels like diving off a cliff as he retorts, “Why would I sleep with someone in your band who isn’t you?”

Enjolras raises an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t you?”

A pinched whine escapes before Grantaire can stop it. His eyes search Enjolras’s face, pleading silently for something. Grantaire doesn’t even know what anymore. He feels pinned, like a cornered animal or a butterfly or something. 

Enjolras’s hand is hot when it comes up to rest on the back of Grantaire’s neck. He has no idea what Enjolras has in mind, but Grantaire can’t help himself—he surges forward and kisses Enjolras. 

The kiss is firm but not rough, their mouths moving together carefully. Grantaire’s hands reach to grip Enjolras’s waist, holding him in place. Holding him away, actually, because Grantaire honestly doesn’t know, can’t imagine, what he will do if their hips meet. Drop to his knees right there on the bus, probably, and beg to get his mouth on Enjolras’s cock. At the very thought, Grantaire’s fingers tighten, digging into firm muscle and sharp hipbones. 

Enjolras exhales, like sighing, and his mouth opens under the pressure of Grantaire’s lips. Grantaire eases his tongue into Enjolras’s mouth softly, just barely licking past sharp teeth to find Enjolras’s tongue, soft and slick and waiting. The hand on Grantaire’s neck slides up to fist in his unruly hair, clenching firmly until Grantaire feels his scalp pull and tingle. Reason returns to Grantaire like a crashing wave and he panics: what if Enjolras is trying to pull him away? He freezes in place, ducking his head away from Enjolras’s pink, wetted mouth. 

The bus door opens and the sudden emptiness at Grantaire’s back unbalances him. He overcorrects, throwing his weight forward and crashing into Enjolras, who staggers backward and braces Grantaire’s shoulders to keep them both from toppling over. “Sorry,” Grantaire yelps as their hips do make contact. All thought of desperate sex is out the window, though, as Grantaire leaps backwards, frantic to get himself and his half-erection as far away from this moment as humanly possible. 

He turns to see the bus door swing closed again. No one has stepped through it, though—they must have seen the tangle of limbs and decided not to enter after all. Grantaire wishes he’d been so smart. He wishes he was far away from whatever is going on here. He reaches for the door.

Enjolras catches his arm and tugs, pulling him through the bunk area and into the back lounge. Grantaire stands, dumbly, as Enjolras slides the door closed. “I’m so sorry,” he blurts. With any luck, he can forestall the angry outburst that’s coming any moment now. But Enjolras just rests his forehead against the door for a moment, breathing heavily, like he’s trying to regain his composure. “I didn’t mean to—”

The words die in Grantaire’s mouth as Enjolras turns and strips his shirt off in one fluid motion. His pale skin is taut across firm musculature. Grantaire’s desire to run wars with his desire to get his mouth on that skin. Enjolras bridges the short gap between them, reaching for the hem of Grantaire’s shirt. 

“What are you doing?” Grantaire asks. He shudders when Enjolras’s hands land on him, but his face is horrified. 

“Getting naked,” Enjolras says simply. “What are _you_ doing?”

“Honestly? Trying not to hyperventilate.”

Enjolras laughs. He slides his hands under Grantaire’s hem to touch skin. “I want to kiss you again. May I?” 

Grantaire opens his mouth to say something—who fucking knows what it will be—but nothing comes out. Enjolras takes his parted lips as a yes, eyeing them intently before he leans in to fit their mouths together again. His hands smooth over Grantaire’s flank, as though settling a startled animal. Grantaire kisses back even as he considers bolting like the terrified and ungainly deer he is sure he resembles. Enjolras licks along his upper lip, urging his mouth open, then pressing his tongue inside. He kisses like there is nothing else in the world but kissing. Grantaire hears himself whine again as Enjolras pulls away slowly, lips lingering.

“Really though,” Grantaire says hoarsely, “what are you doing?”

“You want to have sex with me. You said so.” 

He had. He really, really had. He can feel his panic—not abating but settling, becoming a familiar weight in his chest. “I didn’t, technically,” he points out, as though the distinction matters. “I said I wouldn’t have sex with anyone in your band who wasn’t you.”

Enjolras is looking at him sternly, the same way he’d looked last night as Grantaire burrowed into his couch. This close, Grantaire tells himself, there could be a touch of fondness in it too. 

“It’s okay,” Enjolras says. 

It’s so far from okay. Grantaire can’t even begin to describe how far from okay it is. It’s everything he’s wanted and nothing he ever thought he’d get. It’s heady and terrifying, a dream and a nightmare, his one wish and the one thing he is sure he will fuck up spectacularly. But Grantaire feels his resistance breaking down, and when Enjolras settles his warm hand on the back of Grantaire’s neck again, he gives up completely. The couch is mere steps away, and Grantaire lets himself be guided, sort of pushed and pulled simultaneously, until he and Enjolras stand with their knees bumping its long, low bench. Lets himself be kissed again too, firmly and insistently. 

All he can think is that this will likely be the only time he gets to have this, Enjolras bared and available before him, and he’s certainly not going to waste the opportunity. If Enjolras means to pull Grantaire down onto the couch next to him, the motion is halted when Grantaire drops heavily to his knees. He unbuttons and unzips and tugs off Enjolras’s jeans and boxer briefs in quick, spare movements. He doesn’t dare look up to see how Enjolras might be regarding him now. Instead he helps him kick his clothing away, and with a gentle push, gets Enjolras seated on the couch. 

His skin is smooth, paler through the chest, waist, and thighs than at his arms. Grantaire kisses the inside of Enjolras’s left knee, encouraging him to spread his legs and give Grantaire better access. He nuzzles up Enjolras’s thigh, stubble scraping lightly against the increasingly fine blond hairs. When he reaches the junction where Enjolras’s thigh meets his pelvis, he licks into the crease gently, teasingly.

Enjolras lets out a slow breath. He has himself braced with his hands on the couch beside him. Grantaire licks once more and then, finally, directs his attention to the erection straining against Enjolras’s pelvis, thick and slightly flushed, already beading precome at the tip. Grantaire noses at the base of Enjolras’s cock for a moment, tongue reaching out to taste even as he tries, and fails, to calm his heartbeat.

“Get on with it,” Enjolras bites out, his hands balling into fists beside him. 

Grantaire does. He flattens his tongue and runs it up the raised vein, pressing firmly as he goes. He reaches up with one hand to grip Enjolras down near the base, steadying his cock, before tonguing over the head and taking him into his mouth. This time, Enjolras’s exhale ends on a small moan. Grantaire presses with his tongue again as he lifts and then bobs his head, his hand following along the shaft, keeping perfect time.

Grantaire’s own erection is trapped uncomfortably in his jeans, and the bus floor isn’t doing his knees any favors, but he can’t bring himself to care. He sucks Enjolras as thoroughly as he can manage, tongue working with a flutter each time he rises up and sinks back down.

“I want to, uhn—” Enjolras starts, interrupting himself with a bitten off moan. “Can I—?” His hands hover just out of reach of Grantaire’s head, indicating the question he can’t quite get out.

Grantaire moans his approval of the idea, loathe now to stop what he’s doing for even a moment. Enjolras’s fingers sweep up his neck first, questioning, before sinking into Grantaire’s dark and messy curls. He doesn’t grip, doesn’t try to direct, Grantaire notices with vague surprise, just rests his hands lightly. One thumb strokes the hair above Grantaire’s temple. It feels tender, unexpected. 

Breathing heavily through his nose, Grantaire bobs up and down a few more times before moving his mouth away to catch his breath. He keeps his hand working, now stroking the length of Enjolras’s spit-slick cock, thumb sweeping against his frenulum with each pass. Enjolras’s stomach is trembling slightly, his chest rising and falling with each labored breath, hips twitching upwards like he is trying not to buck. Grantaire marvels for a moment that he has done this—gotten Enjolras worked up, flushed like he is when onstage—but the very thought threatens to bring the panic back full force, so he ducks his head again and takes Enjolras’s cock back into his mouth. 

Another moan escapes at the feeling of Enjolras again on his tongue, and the vibrations of sound coax a matching moan from above him. Grantaire speeds up his ministrations, feels the fingers in his hair flex and then tighten. “I’m close,” Enjolras says in simple warning. Tongue working, Grantaire bobs down as far as he can. His nose bumps Enjolras’s pubic hair just as, with a choked sound, Enjolras grinds up to meet him, and comes. 

Grantaire swallows repeatedly, trying to catch everything, before pulling off. He rests his forehead against Enjolras’s thigh and tries to catch his breath. His own erection throbs now, insistently, but Grantaire holds himself as still as possible, unsure what will happen as Enjolras regains himself. 

The one hand still resting in his hair begins petting gently. Grantaire looks up to see Enjolras watching him closely, bottom lip caught between his teeth. When Enjolras speaks, it is almost too quiet to hear. “Come up here.”

“Okay,” Grantaire answers shakily. It’s an awkward shuffle as Grantaire unbends his stiff legs and settles himself on the couch. Turned to face each other, their knees bump and jar. 

Enjolras ignores it, hands reaching for Grantaire’s zipper but pausing just above it. “Can I touch you?”

“Fuck, okay,” Grantaire exhales. 

Quick fingers get his pants unzipped and pulled down carefully over his cock. He leans back into the couch, letting Enjolras bracket his side to get a decent grip. Enjolras’s hand is warm and steady, and Grantaire has to close his eyes lest it end before it really begins. Even without the visual, he can’t last long. After a handful of firm strokes, Enjolras leans in, pressing a kiss to the corner of Grantaire’s lips. Grantaire turns his head to meet him, Enjolras twists his hand just right, and moments later, Grantaire comes with a grunt that is lost in their open-mouthed kiss.


	5. Charlotte / Virginia Beach / Nashville

Grantaire can’t move. 

He remembers being able to move, once upon a time, back before the universe as he knew it ended and was replaced by some a terrifying Twilight Zone of sexual pleasure and imminent embarrassment. The body beside him shifts, because of course Enjolras can move at a time like this, of course he hasn’t been flung into a vacuum of existential terror. 

Enjolras is, in fact, pulling his clothing back on. Enjolras, who had been all the way naked, is pulling his clothing back on while Grantaire sits, fully dressed but exposed, on his couch. He makes a vague motion to do… something. Enjolras, meanwhile, tosses him a box of tissues. It bounces off his hand and falls lamely onto the couch beside him. Grantaire wipes himself off and does his pants back up. Pushing his existential terror aside for a moment, he thinks he might actually make it out of this nightmare fantasy intact.

There’s a loud knock at the door.

They both freeze momentarily. Grantaire feels himself redden, but given that they’re both already dressed again, Enjolras just calls out, “Yeah?”

Combeferre’s muffled voice says, “Call is in 20 minutes.”

“Be right there,” Enjolras answers.

He waits for Grantaire to stand before sliding open the lounge door. Grantaire beelines for the front of the bus. Combeferre is now sitting in the kitchen area, reading. He looks up and fixes his gaze on Enjolras as Grantaire trips his way to the exit.

“Um, later,” Grantaire says vaguely to his surroundings, then practically throws himself out the door and down the steep little bus stairs.

Outside, the sun is setting and the tour bustles on. Grantaire rounds a corner and smacks directly into Marius, who carries a box spilling over with t-shirts.

“Sorry!” Marius exclaims. “You okay?”

Grantaire nods a little. “Yeah,” he forces himself to answer. “Yeah. Just surprised me.” He reaches out to tuck a few trailing shirts into the box better.

“Thanks,” Marius says. 

They stand there awkwardly for a moment.

“Can I—” Grantaire begins.

“So do you—” Marius says at the same time. “Sorry. You go.”

Grantaire takes a deep breath. “Can I ask you a weird question?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever tried to make something less awkward and ended up just making it worse?”

Marius chuckles. “Have you seen my life?” he asks good-naturedly. 

Grantaire has to laugh too. 

“Why do you ask?” Marius continues.

“No reason. Anyway, I’ll let you…” He gestures to the t-shirt box.

“Right,” Marius says, confusion on his face. “See you later?”

“Later,” Grantaire confirms, already backing away.

He wants to retreat to his van and sleep forever. He wants to sleep until the tour disappears around him and reappears, mirage-like, 100 years later, in the exact same spot. He thinks that’s probably the plot of a musical Cosette made them watch once. Right now, it sounds ideal.

Instead he goes to find Bossuet and get drunk as shit. 

 

—

 

They succeed spectacularly, even after Bossuet drops a case of bottled beer in the supermarket. He just laughs in horror as it shatters and floods alcohol everywhere. They get a different case, and a fine selection of the least expensive whiskey at the liquor store down the street, and they succeed at drunkenness with flying colors. Outside Bossuet’s bus, they drink and drink and Bossuet laughs and Grantaire laughs along, maybe a little too loudly. 

They seize Grantaire’s guitar and decide to write a song about the majesty of the American landscape they’re touring through. Grantaire sketches out a brilliant verse about eagles. Bossuet demands the guitar next, fiddles with the tuning pegs a minute, and then snaps the B and high E strings in one strum.

Later, Grantaire passes out face down in the back of his van and nearly sleeps through the last possible moment he can get on the road and still make it to Charlotte for his set. He pushes the van harder than he likes, but pulls in just in time to rush to the second stage and play. 

After that, he gets drunk with the guitar techs. He convinces them to restring his songwriting guitar in the wake of Bossuet’s abuse. The techs trade stories of horrible tours past, and they’re generous with their booze. Grantaire kind of loves them. He also loves their bus, parked all the way at the front, tucked away from foot traffic and generally avoided by other performers. He should drink with them all the time, he thinks woozily. 

He drags himself out of the back of the van just after sunrise the next day so he can take his time getting to Virginia Beach. He begs a shower on the Jondrettes’ bus—Gavroche frowns at him but doesn’t say much—and plays his late afternoon timeslot. 

Afterwards, a tall girl with glasses stops him on his way to buy a beer from the vendors. She is friendly and a little awkward as she asks for his signature. He scrawls his trademark “R” on her tour poster, and she says, “I loved your last album. One of my favorites. But whatever happened to that acoustic stuff you were going to release a couple years ago?”

“Oh, um,” Grantaire stutters. No one has asked him about the planned but unreleased project in years. Given the events of recent days, it hasn’t been far from his mind, but he hasn’t had to actually talk about it. “You know?” he says, casting around for an answer. “That stuff just didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.”

She nods sagely. “Well, I know people would still love to hear it.” He attempts a smile and she rushes to add, “Or whatever you’re doing next.” She reclaims her now-signed poster and disappears with a quick thanks. 

Grantaire sincerely hopes that no one ever hears the album she mentioned. He’d announced it a few years ago, just after the last time he’d toured with Friends!, but it had never come to fruition. All the better, as far as Grantaire is concerned. 

He gets two beers from the vendor—to save himself a trip—and wanders over the mainstage entrance. Bahorel waves him through the barricaded area.

From a spot off to the side, he watches the last two songs of the Jondrettes’ set. Ep and Cosette are in rare form, laughing and teasing and singing their hearts out. They must be over whatever spat happened in Florida. Grantaire is glad to see it. They bicker like sisters constantly, but there’d been a time, when they first met Marius, that they’d actually fought. Big, nasty, mean fights, the kind that their label worried would break up the band. Grantaire hopes they never fight like that again. 

The Jondrettes finish and he catches Ep’s attention as she comes offstage. “Amazing as always,” he tells her truthfully.

“Flatter me all you want,” she says, shaking her head, “I’m still going to ask you where you’ve been for the past few days.”

Grantaire presses his lips together in silent disapproval. But before he can respond, Courfeyrac appears behind them. He high fives them both enthusiastically as he announces, “Day off tomorrow. If we get to Nashville fast enough, we can partake of their lax downtown liquor laws.”

Eponine looks to Grantaire, who shrugs. “I’m in.”

“Me too,” she adds.

“Excellent! Then we will see you in the land of country music.” Courf salutes as he leaves.

“So are you…” Grantaire begins.

“Friends,” Eponine nods. “Ugh, no pun intended. Just friends. You were right about him.”

“And it’s not weird?”

“Well. It’s not not weird. But it’s fine.” She ruffles Grantaire’s hair. “Gotta go. See you tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he promises.

Grantaire doesn’t realize he’s miscalculated until the red lights wash the stage.

He considers bolting as Friends! take their respective places behind mics and pedals and kits, but then Courf counts them off and Enjolras starts ripping through chords, and Grantaire can’t move. He feels almost how he felt back on the bus, pinned in place, but thankful that he’s only seeing them from the side of the stage. Enjolras is closer from this vantage point, yes, but his gaze is directed out to the crowd.

That same crowd screams, thrashes, yells along, and Enjolras gives them everything. Courf is excitable behind his kit, bouncing messy curls as he plays. Combeferre is calmer, mostly still, a steady presence backing them up. But Enjolras is fire. Enjolras is spilled blood. He burns and he screams and he sings with all the air in his lungs. Soon he’s soaked in sweat, muscles cording, pale skin gone ruddy with exertion.

It’s so beautiful, and Grantaire is so fucked.

Now that he knows what that skin tastes like, knows what it feels like, knows from a handful of words and moans what Enjolras sounds like, well. He’s not even sure how intimate you could call what happened between them—wonders briefly how he seemed from Enjolras’s perspective, silent with desperation or distance, panicked or hesitant or what. Did Enjolras actually realize the threshold he’d tugged Grantaire over?

The set is just a set. A predetermined list of songs with regular things said in between. It can’t answer Grantaire’s questions.

He watches the whole thing anyway.

 

—

 

Nashville is wild.  

A block from the Country Music Hall of Fame and the historic Ryman Auditorium, Courfeyrac explains, Broadway’s strip of classic honky tonks and dive bars begins. There’s live music in every single one and no cover charges anywhere. Best of all, the booze is cheap and open container laws nonexistent; if you don’t like the band, you can take your drink and walk up the street, often just next door, and try something else.

The group Courfeyrac has assembled—his own bandmates, the Rosa Luxemburg Experience, the Jondrettes, with Marius in tow, Jehan, Grantaire, and Bahorel, who’s off since there’s no tour that night—pour into the street, joining the flood of tourists and locals carrying to-go cups and marked up with handstamps. 

They start at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, where Joly breathlessly tells them Willie Nelson got his start. Cosette insists they all do shots, pub crawl-style. 

The band is decent but after one too many Jason Aldean covers, the group collectively decides to move on to the next bar.

They pile next door, into the Second Fiddle. Combeferre is immediately fascinated by the vintage radios decorating the bar. He wanders from one to the next, examining them reverently.  

Cosette and Eponine get their round of shots—even Enjolras drinks, Grantaire notices with more than a little surprise—but the band onstage mentions ‘Southern heritage’ between songs, and they flee faster than the bartender can blink, Courfeyrac dragging Combeferre away by his collar. Bossuet and Eponine share relieved looks.

Grantaire and Marius pick up the shots from the painfully cute bartender at Layla’s Bluegrass Inn, and the group crowds around two tiny tables towards the front. Onstage, an average-looking white guy is giving Jerry Lee Lewis a run for his money, just tearing into an oversized electric keyboard that approximates a piano pretty well. 

At one table, Feuilly and Bahorel argue over the proper way to defuse a fight in a large crowd. From what Grantaire can hear, Bahorel is in favor of just knocking out the aggressors and dragging them away.

Eponine sticks close to Cosette’s side, while Marius and Courfeyrac catch up enthusiastically. Courf regales Combeferre and the rest of his table with stories from their roommate days. The stories all seem to involve a lot of public nudity on Courf’s part and blushing and stammering on Marius’s. 

A few songs and drinks in, the pianist onstage asks the bar, “Any singers out in the crowd?”

The sheer size of their group ensures they’re louder than anyone else who responds, so the guy tells them he needs one or two female voices for the next song. Musichetta’s busy debating Walt Whitman with Jehan, and she waves a hand at Cosette and Eponine to get up there.

The girls climb onto the platform that serves as a stage and confer with the band for a moment. Marius drifts closer to Grantaire for a better view, bridging the gap between the two tables. Cosette and Eponine step up to the extra mics as the pianist beings the first notes of  “Can the Circle Be Unbroken?” He starts the verse and Grantaire gets chills when Cosette and Ep come in together, in perfect close harmony, on the chorus. 

Next to him, Marius sigh dreamily. Grantaire notes that, of their friends, only Combeferre is watching the stage with nearly as much concentration. 

Applause explodes from the crowd when the song finishes. Cosette and Ep take their bows, but the pianist snags them for another quick exchange of words. “Y’all just got a real treat, it seems,” he tells the crowd through his mic. “Give it up for the Jondrettes, I know you’ve heard of ’em.” The bar cheers again, equal parts recognition and plain drunken enthusiasm. “They’re gonna do one more for us tonight.” Nodding their cue, the band launches straight into “Jolene.” The girls give it their all.

Over the music, Grantaire hears Courfeyrac say something that includes the words “Dolly Parton” and “Miley Cyrus.”  Enjolras immediately declares something to be “everything that’s wrong with the music industry,” and begins a stern lecture that Grantaire can only half hear.

Joly slides over and snaps his fingers in front of Marius’s transfixed face. “You still with us?” he asks.

Marius blinks dazedly. “Here, yeah. I just, wow. I never get tired of hearing that.”

Enjolras flicks his eyes disdainfully around the room and says, “Nashville should be burned to the ground.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Marius exclaims. 

“Not in the slightest. Country music is an ethical wasteland that has produced nothing but insipid love songs and Republican screeds for the past 20—no, 30—years. It has done this all while systematically removing any of the artistic markers that originally made the genre worthwhile. It is now nothing more than the worst radio pop with more disgusting conventional morality and a slide guitar or fiddle thrown in so we know what commercial radio station we’re tuned into.” Enjolras’s voice has grown louder in the course of his diatribe, his body turning to address their entire ragtag party. 

Musichetta scoffs quietly, while Marius boggles. “How can you— I mean, seriously, what the hell?” he asks with bewilderment. 

Enjolras turns to him sharply, but Grantaire intrudes. “Marius is right, Enjolras. What the hell? You can’t condemn an entire genre based on its commercial output.” Marius nods his agreement vigorously. “You’re dismissing the contributions of a whole range of artists—” 

He pauses and looks to Marius, who jumps in right on time. “Lucinda Williams, Texas Tornadoes, the Drive-By Truckers…”

“Neko Case,” Grantaire adds, “who started out as a fucking punk drummer.”

Enjolras glares. “None of those bands are making a political statement.”

“The Carolina Chocolate Drops,” Marius retorts.

“The Pine Hill Haints, the Can Kickers," Grantaire lists off, "The Ones to Blame and Whiskey & Co., who came out of Gainesville, you solipsistic ass. Hell, anybody on Yep Roc Records."

Marius, emboldened, turns to Enjolras. “Besides, who cares if a band doesn’t have a political message? Where is it written that love songs aren’t worthwhile? Music expresses inexpressible emotions in their purest possible form. Artists who can conjure those feelings,” he sweeps a hand towards the stage, “help us better understand our own hearts. They give us something to fight for.” 

Grantaire raises his glass high. “Join the revolution, Enjolras. Fall in love.”

“Don’t give me th—” Enjolras begins angrily, but whatever he means to say is drowned out by wild applause as the song finishes and the girls thank the crowd. 

The rest of the group welcomes them back enthusiastically. Marius rushes to Cosette, fawning over her, all mawkish hands trying to offer her a drink and pull out a stool at the same time. Grantaire watches her smile blindingly for a heartbeat but then pull herself gently away. The tension of the argument has been replaced by a kind of silent trading of heavy looks—Marius gives all his attention to Cosette, who awkwardly looks to Eponine, who is watching Marius with palpable sadness. Combeferre, meanwhile, cocks his head as he surveys the whole exchange, like he’s working out a geometry problem. 

The moment passes.

But Grantaire can’t shake the itchy, raw feeling that has seeped under his skin. He goes to the bar for another drink. The cute bartender flirts a little as he pours Grantaire’s beer, in that way that all bartenders do, and Grantaire smiles with meaningless promise. 

When he turns from the bar, Enjolras is standing there, just kind of glaring at him.

Grantaire honestly has no idea what possesses him, but he leans over and says flatly, “You know, I like that look on your face a lot better when you’re letting me suck your dick.”

The glare melts into bewilderment, as Enjolras’s brow furrows in a totally different way. “What?”

Grantaire feels very tired all of a sudden. “Forget it,” he says. “I don’t actually want to fight anymore tonight. Just say what you came over here to say.”

“I— never mind.” Enjolras hesitates. “Did you just say ‘letting me’…?” He doesn’t finish the phrase.

Grantaire shrugs. “Yes, Enjolras, I haven’t forgotten how charitable you were.”

“I didn’t— what the fuck? I didn’t _let you_ do anything. I wanted you to.” In the dark, Grantaire can’t tell if he is imagining the color rising on Enjolras’s cheeks. 

“Oh, right,” Grantaire says. “Suddenly, after however many years, you wanted me to.”

“Years?” Enjolras blinks in honest confusion.

“Years.” The confirmation sucks the last of the fight out of Grantaire. “Really though. Why now?” The question is empty of venom. 

Enjolras pauses, honestly considering it. “I don’t really know. I was— and you…” He trails off, starts again. “I think that was the first time we’d ever been alone together.”

Grantaire feels sucker punched. He doesn’t know what to do with that answer. He takes a long drink of his beer and can’t help but notice Enjolras watching him closely as he swallows. “Well,” he finally says, trying as hard as he can to keep any emotion out of his voice. “I’d do it again.”

Enjolras keeps looking at him.

Grantaire doesn’t know what he expects from this exchange. For Enjolras to haul him into the bathroom then and there? Or laugh in his face, tell him that’ll never happen?

He does neither. Instead, he just nods. “Okay.”

Bahorel chooses that moment to come and retrieve them. Everyone’s gone on to the next bar. “Everyone but Courfeyrac,” he clarifies with a smirk, “who just disappeared with our bartender.”


	6. Baton Rouge

Their own Nashville shows are tame compared to their previous night on the town. For one thing, no one has to help Courfeyrac reclaim his underwear from a supply closet.

Grantaire sleeps late, does his set, then spends his afternoon on the phone with his label, arguing over what will happen when he gets off tour at the end of the summer. There’s no deal yet for his next album. Frankly, he’s not sure there will be one. The rep on the phone is sketchy about details, sketchy about dollar figures, and since Grantaire’s currently between management, he’s left trying to negotiate on his own from the mattress stuffed in the back of his van. 

He hangs up when it’s clear the call is going nowhere. For the next hour, he takes his anger out on his guitar, fingers plucking strings so hard he almost takes off a fingernail.

Their next stop is Baton Rouge, a nearly nine hour drive down through Alabama and across Mississippi. The buses will drive all night while their bands sleep. Grantaire has to set out almost immediately, before the other bands are even done playing, if he wants to make it. 

He gets on the road around 9:00 pm. He wonders what everyone else is doing, wonders why the hell he didn’t beg a spot on someone’s bus this summer.

Alabama is kind of beautiful, maybe, but boring as hell in the dark. The van is just about to cross the state line into Mississippi, radio blaring, when Grantaire realizes he’s starting to yawn a little too often. He pulls into a rest stop and sets his phone alarm. If he can get a few hours of sleep now, he thinks, he can make it the rest of the way and sleep again before he plays. 

His alarm goes off three hours later and he starts awake, blinking blearily in the darkness. It takes a few minutes to fully regain consciousness, but he feels better as he pulls back onto I-59. 

He stops for gas and snacks an hour after that, somewhere in the middle of Mississippi. It’s nearly 5:00 am but the truck stop is mostly empty. Sodium lights buzz yellow above the pumps, but the light inside the little store is bright white, harsh. Grantaire rubs his eyes against it as he heads to the bathroom.

Everything feels muffled in the sharp contrast. The radio inside the store plays a country song Grantaire doesn’t recognize. He blinks at the endless rows of beef jerky, trying to decide what flavor he feels like for breakfast. 

When he looks up, Enjolras is standing there, looking sleepy in his cutoff jeans and hoodie, staring at Grantaire.

He thinks maybe it’s a mirage, a sure sign he needs to go back to sleep, but then it speaks. “Hey,” the Enjolras mirage says. “Our driver needed coffee.”

Grantaire looks around. Sure enough, the Friends! bus is parked next to the semi-trucks outside, and a middle-aged woman Grantaire has seen before is at the counter buying the largest cup of coffee the gas station offers.

“Um,” Grantaire says.

“Sorry if I startled you,” Enjolras goes on. “It seemed weird if I saw you and didn’t say something.”

“Okay.”

Enjolras points to the food. “Also you’re standing right in front of the beef jerky.”

“Yeah.”

“Which is what I came inside to get.”

“Oh.”

The woman at the counter finishes her transaction. Enjolras holds up two fingers when she looks his way, like shorthand for something. He turns back to Grantaire. “Can I…?” He steps in. 

It takes Grantaire a moment to realize that Enjolras is trying to get to the jerky display. He steps back a half-second too late, by which point Enjolras has leaned in close, his hoodie sleeve brushing along Grantaire’s bare arm.

Grantaire shivers. Enjolras picks up a bag of teriyaki flavored jerky.

“Anyway,” he says, stepping back. “I should go.”

Grantaire shakes his head to clear it a bit. “Right. Me too.” He pauses. “Maybe I’ll see you around tonight?”

Enjolras’s lips curve ever so slightly. “Probably.”

 

—

 

It’s hot as fuck in Baton Rouge. Grantaire sweats through his set and then immediately retreats to the shade of The Rosa Luxemburg Experience’s bus awning. Musichetta smacks a big showy kiss on his cheek on her way to the stage. “Help yourself to the cooler,” she says, “but you may have to do a beer run later.”

He dozes on a lawn chair, beer in hand, until they return. They’ve brought back food from the vendors to share. Feuilly and Bossuet drag a picnic table over from Grantaire doesn’t even know where. They sit around it to eat, and then Grantaire drags Joly along on his promised beer run.

“I don’t mind,” Joly tells him. “I wanted to see if they had any fruit beer.”

“Fruit beer?” Grantaire asks.

“Beer made with fruit juices, like raspberry or peach. Like balancing out the food pyramid while you drink,” Joly explains earnestly.

Grantaire is pretty sure the benefits of any fruit juice in the beer are rendered nonexistent by it being, you know, beer, but he doesn’t mention it. They grab two cases of cheap stuff, and Joly cheers a little when he finds a sampler of Abita in various fruit flavors.

Back at the bus, they drink and lounge and complain about the heat, which doesn’t let up, even after the sun goes down. Feuilly ransacks the bus for construction paper—he just shrugs when asked where it came from—and folds a set of elaborate paper fans that are surprisingly sturdy. Musichetta drapes herself along a chair and gets Bossuet and Joly to trade off fanning her like a queen. 

It gets late enough that the headliners have finished their primetime sets. At Joly’s insistent lectures about dehydration, everyone has been alternating between beer and cold water, and so, despite hours spent drinking, Grantaire isn’t even really buzzed when Combeferre drops onto the lawn chair next to him. 

They eye each other for a minute.

“So…” Grantaire says.

“So,” Combeferre agrees. “It’s weird how small the world is, huh?”

Grantaire looks confused.

“This morning, I mean. Enjolras said he ran into you at the truck stop?”

“Oh.” Grantaire lets out a breath. “Uh, yeah.”

Combeferre is silent a moment. Finally, he says, “It’s cool to see you again.”

“Since… Nashville?”

“No,” Combeferre laughs. “Since the last tour.”

“Right,” Grantaire says. “Sure. I mean, it’s a lot bigger this time. More people to talk to. More friends around. Um. No pun intended.”

Combeferre nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, more people, very true. I think it’s better, you know, keeps us all from getting sick of each other and going stir crazy. Keeps some of the more, hmm, severe personalities in check.” He looks around, then looks at Grantaire, then starts to stand. “Anyway, enjoy your beer.” He gets a drink from the cooler and joins another conversation.

Grantaire scans the gathering that has spread out around the chairs and picnic table. Bands, artists, techs—all mingle freely, laughing and drinking, mostly sitting because it’s still too hot to do much else. At the table, Feuilly shows Eponine how to pick a complicated rhythm on the banjo. Courfeyrac hangs close to Bossuet, still, it seems, testing the waters. Grantaire has to smile at his bravery, or like, his _joie de vivre_ or whatever. 

A glint of blond hair draws his eye, and he sees Enjolras hovering awkwardly at the fringes of a few conversations, never really joining in. Grantaire tries not to stare, but of course Enjolras turns just in time to catch him looking. Enjolras excuses himself and sits down, gingerly, in the chair Combeferre had sat in. 

“Hi again,” Grantaire offers. 

“Are we still on cease fire terms?” Enjolras inquires, kind of abruptly.

Grantaire recoils a little. He really doesn’t want to think about where ‘cease fire terms’ got them last time. “Yeah, of course.”

Enjolras shrugs. “I wasn’t sure after Nashville.”

“Hey, I didn’t start that,” Grantaire says, his voice light, almost teasing. “But you can’t expect me not to call you on your shit sometimes.” He thinks a moment. “I didn’t start anything this morning either.”

“You could barely string two words together this morning. You were clearly exhausted. I was worried you wouldn’t make it to the show.”

Grantaire smirks. “You were worried?”

Enjolras shrugs. It’s a strange gesture from him, telegraphing a casualness he rarely shows.

Grantaire puts a hand to his chest. “I’m touched,” he jokes. 

Courfeyrac joins them then, folding himself down to sit beside Enjolras. 

“Taking a break from your ongoing amorous adventures?” Grantaire asks him. 

“Maybe I’m here to seduce you,” he says with an exaggerated wink.

Enjolras frowns heavily. Grantaire chokes a little, tries to cover it with a laugh.

Courf looks between them, eyes shrewd. “Kidding,” he says. “Besides, there’s more to life than naked fun.” His smile is devilish. “There’s all the parts before naked fun.”

Grantaire recovers, raises his beer in salute. 

“But let’s not dwell there,” Courf continues. “How did you survive your set today? It must have been boiling onstage.”

Moment averted, the conversation moves on. From the heat to the crowds to the dream of a real bed, Courf keeps them talking. Despite the initial weirdness, he is, Grantaire thinks, the perfect third party, keeping the conversation going, smoothing over awkward pauses or touchy subjects. He’s also quick to offer to get up and get them drinks when they run out.

The next time he heads for the cooler, Enjolras looks at the beer in Grantaire’s hand and says diplomatically, “You seem more sober, tonight?”

His face is serious, almost sincere. Grantaire fights back a snarky comment. “Joly was really worried about everyone getting heatstroke,” he answers truthfully. “He’s been making us trade off with water. It was too hot to argue.”

He nods slowly. “That’s good.”

Grantaire doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. They sit in silence for a moment. Looking around, he realizes that most people have drifted away, to bed or at least their own buses. Feuilly and Ep are still at the picnic table, but the rest of the group has dispersed. Even Courf has disappeared.

Eponine catches his eye. “Come hear what I learned tonight?” she asks, indicating the instrument in her hands.

“Sure.” He sits on the tabletop, feet on the bench, and gestures for her to begin. She picks through it deftly, only losing the fingering once. They clap. She beams, and then hands Feuilly back the banjo. 

“Thank you, good sir,” she says, and yawns. “And now, goodnight.” While she heads off for her bus, Feuilly stands. “I should sleep too,” he says with a wave. He and his banjo climb the stairs of the bus just beyond their little ring of chairs.

Grantaire starts to swing his legs off the edge of the table and crashes straight into Enjolras, who has appeared beside him yet again.

“Ahh!” he yelps. “You really have to stop doing that.”

“Sorry,” Enjolras says, not sounding sorry at all. 

“Jesus, I didn’t even realize you were still here, I thought you went to bed.”

“Not yet.” 

Their legs are pressed against each other, Grantaire’s knee at Enjolras’s mid-thigh, and Grantaire thinks surely Enjolras will move back, put a distance between them, but he doesn’t. Instead he moves closer still, until the table must be biting into his legs. He hovers over Grantaire, who raises his eyes to take in Enjolras’s face. 

Enjolras looks, not stern like usual, but determined. He places a hand lightly on the side of Grantaire’s neck, using his thumb to tilt Grantaire’s chin up. He licks his lips slowly, deliberately, like he’s giving Grantaire time to protest. 

Grantaire has no protest in mind. He has no thoughts at all, really. He waits.

Enjolras leans down, leans in, kisses Grantaire firmly. He’s brief, but thorough.

“Cool,” Grantaire breathes as they break apart.

Enjolras expels air, like one beat of a laugh. He takes a step back and reaches down to nudge Grantaire’s knee, rearranging it so he can stand between Grantaire’s spread legs. He leans down, and they’re kissing again. 

The edge of the table digs into the backs of Grantaire’s thighs. He slides forward, grasping Enjolras’s slim waist, not holding him away this time but pulling him in close. Enjolras pushes back with his hips. They’re pressed right up against each other now, and Grantaire’s feet search for the ground as he tries to gain some kind of leverage. Enjolras puts a hand to his waist, slipping it up under Grantaire’s t-shirt and gripping his side. 

The air around them feels impossibly hot. Grantaire’s lips buzz as Enjolras pulls away from the kiss.

He keeps a hand on Grantaire’s neck, fingers combing gently at the tips of Grantaire’s curls, as he says, “I’m trying so hard not to pull your hair right now. I want to.”

Grantaire’s hips twitch forwards. “You can.”

Enjolras stills, pulls back a little more. “You don’t like it. You froze up last time I did.”

“That’s— really not what was going on.” He rolls his hips purposefully now. “You can,” he repeats.

Enjolras kisses him again, but he doesn’t yet move his hand from Grantaire’s neck. He tugs on Grantaire’s lower lip with his teeth, impossibly gentle, licks over Grantaire’s tongue. They’ve eased all the way back into the kiss, and only then does Enjolras slide his hand up into Grantaire’s hair. He tugs, just a little.

Grantaire whines right into Enjolras’s mouth. He rolls his hips continuously now, trapped between Enjolras and the table, erection straining at his zipper. 

Their kisses speed up, gaining intensity. Grantaire lets Enjolras set the pace, feels like he is running a little to catch up. He is panting, he knows, and his fingers dig into Enjolras’s t-shirt, unsure of how much liberty he can take. 

Enjolras has him stretched backwards, feet barely hitting the ground, head tugged back as the hand in his hair grips solidly. The other hand moves to Grantaire’s waist, fingers popping open the button on his jeans. 

“Uhh— uhnn,” Grantaire pants, half protest, half pleasure. He ducks his head a little, breaking away from Enjolras’s mouth and trying to catch his breath. The hand between them is pressing into Grantaire’s cock, fingers teasing at his zipper. 

In the distance, a bus engine turns over, shuddering to life. 

“Shit, um, wait,” Grantaire says. Enjolras stills his hand but doesn’t move it away. He looks at Grantaire. “Can we, maybe, like, take this somewhere?”

Enjolras tightens the hand in Grantaire’s hair again, noses in to nip at his earlobe. “I don’t know,” he says teasingly, mouth brushing Grantaire’s ear, “I kind of like this table.”

Grantaire shivers.

“But we can go somewhere else,” Enjolras continues. With both hands, he rebuttons Grantaire’s jeans.

“My van is just, uh—” Grantaire indicates it haphazardly, waiting to regain the power to actually stand up.

The walk is torture. Awkward, terrible torture, and Grantaire kind of wishes he’d let Enjolras do whatever to him right there on the damn picnic table. 

“When do you have to be on the bus?” he asks, just to break the silence.

“We’re not leaving until morning,” Enjolras answers.

When they find where Grantaire has parked, he unlocks and opens one of the back doors. It’s dark outside, darker still in the van, but Grantaire hopes he hasn’t left it too much of a mess. The windows have been cracked all day, at least, allowing air to get in. It’s hot but not as stuffy as it could be. 

There is no graceful way to crawl inside. They just stand there for a second, but then Enjolras takes charge of the moment. He foregoes the open door, backing Grantaire up against the outside of the van, sliding one thigh between his legs. They kiss until Grantaire is breathless again, awkward moments forgotten in the trade of sensations, the press of their bodies. Grantaire can feel Enjolras’s cock against his own, through however many layers of fabric. He drops his head to mouth at Enjolras’s neck. 

“I want your mouth again,” Enjolras tells him. “I want to hold you by the hair while you do it, put you where I want you.”

Grantaire groans into his skin. He ducks lower, sets his teeth to Enjolras’s collarbone. 

“Please?” Enjolras says.

Grantaire can’t hold out any longer. “Okay, okay,” he answers. He pushes off the van, scrambling and pulling Enjolras into the back with him. Kneeling, he pulls the door shut behind them. 

The back of the van isn’t cramped, exactly, but Enjolras fills the space in a way Grantaire is painfully unused to. He settles himself onto Grantaire’s mattress, tugging off his shirt and leaning back on his hands. He looks perfectly at ease. Grantaire wants to fix the image in his mind, but he also wants to crawl over and get his mouth on Enjolras already. 

He chooses crawling.

“Lift up,” he tells Enjolras, tugging off his ridiculous cutoff jeans. He catches one of Enjolras’s hands, then, and places it on the back of his head. 

Enjolras groans a little. Grantaire lets himself feel just a little smug as he lowers his mouth onto Enjolras’s cock. 

The hand in his hair fists and then tugs. Grantaire feels his scalp tingle, almost burn, and he concentrates on keeping his mouth open and his lips over his teeth. He lets Enjolras guide his movements, set the pace. Enjolras pushes and tugs and bucks his hips, fucking up into Grantaire’s mouth exactly how he wants to. 

Then, with a growl, he pulls Grantaire off him and says, “Fuck, forget it, I changed my mind.” 

Grantaire tries not to flinch. He thinks frantically for what he might have done wrong, but nothing is apparent. He wipes his mouth and looks up.

Enjolras is looking back at him with his mouth parted, face flushed in the dim light that filters through the windows. “I’d rather fuck you,” he says. “Can I?”

Grantaire exhales his relief. “Yes, yeah, please,” he babbles. 

Enjolras sits up, immediately reaching for the edge of Grantaire’s shirt. “Get naked,” he says, halfway to a command. 

They strip Grantaire out of his shirt in tandem. His pants are trickier, kneeling as he is in the small space, but he gets them down and off without falling over. “How should I…?”

Enjolras kisses him, hard, and then smacks his hip. “Hands and knees, on the mattress,” he answers. “I have a condom. Where’s your lube?”

Grantaire shuffles into place, then reaches over and fishes the bottle out of his bag. The realization hits him suddenly: Enjolras came at least somewhat prepared. Either he keeps a condom with him at all times, Grantaire thinks—unlikely, given what Grantaire knows of his social life—or Enjolras left his bus tonight with some intention of fucking him. His cock twitches at the thought and he drops his head to his arms for a split second, trying to process it. 

Enjolras smooths a hand down his back. “Okay?” he asks. 

Grantaire pushes himself back up. “Great,” he says vaguely to the front of the van. 

Enjolras drops a kiss to his spine and uncaps the lube. Grantaire tries not to shiver. His arms shake as he waits, muscles tight. 

At the first cold touch of Enjolras’s slick fingers, he jerks forward. The fingers move away.

“Sorry,” Grantaire says quickly. “It’s just cold. Please—” 

Enjolras puts a hand on Grantaire’s hip to steady him and trails his fingers, slowly, up the cleft of his ass. He presses firmly, until Grantaire groans a little, before pushing one finger inside. Grantaire groans louder. He pushes back. Enjolras withdraws and pushes back in. He fucks him open slowly, and Grantaire feels heat sweep through his body.

He drops to his elbows and looks back along his side. Enjolras is kneeling, one hand braced on Grantaire’s hip, look of intense concentration on his face as he opens Grantaire up. One finger is replaced by two, which twist and crook and hit Grantaire just right. 

“Please, please,” he stutters out, getting his hands underneath him again. 

“Please what?” Enjolras says. His fingers continue to thrust.

“Just, uhhn— please fuck me,” Grantaire begs.

Enjolras withdraws his fingers slowly. “Okay, impatient,” he says, not unkindly. He picks up the condom, tears it open, rolls it on.

“Yeah, impatient,” Grantaire huffs. “I’ve only been—” He breaks off as Enjolras lines up and pushes, smoothly, inside. Waiting for-fucking-ever, Grantaire does not finish saying. 

Enjolras grips his hips with both hands, now, setting up a steady rhythm. Grantaire thrusts back too hard, knocking them off their pace. “Relax,” Enjolras says sternly. Grantaire fights a desperate bubbling laugh. He holds himself as still as he can, until Enjolras begins again. “That’s it,” Enjolras encourages.

He keeps thrusting, letting it build, until Grantaire is groaning on every stroke. Only then does he reach around and settle a warm hand on Grantaire’s cock. 

Grantaire bites his lip. Enjolras’s hand is overwhelming, hot and still slick with lube. Someday, he thinks, he will hold out longer than this in the face of such an onslaught—then clamps down hard on the thought, which is far too hopeful, and which immediately makes him come. 

Enjolras strokes him through it, still fucking into him steadily, until Grantaire whimpers with overstimulation and lowers himself again to his elbows. Enjolras takes it as permission to speed up, thrust harder, and it isn’t long before he loses the rhythm, hips stuttering with his own quiet orgasm. 

The only sound in the van is their harsh breathing. Grantaire sinks forward into his mattress. He makes a face as he lands right in his own wet spot. 

Behind him, Enjolras shifts around, tying off the condom before he flops, gracefully graceless, onto the mattress beside Grantaire. He is long and lean, sheened with sweat. He’s unfairly beautiful. 

Grantaire casts around for something to say. Nothing occurs to him. Enjolras pats his hip gently and sits up. “I should get—” 

“Right, sorry,” Grantaire says immediately.

“—back to the bus,” Enjolras finishes, needlessly. He pulls his clothes back on. 

Grantaire, in the meantime, shimmies back into his boxers and swings the back door of the van open. “Thanks?” he says lamely after Enjolras has climbed out.

Enjolras just quirks his lips oddly before turning and walking away.

Grantaire closes the door and slumps onto his mattress. He lands right in the wetspot, yet again, and grimaces to himself.


	7. Houston / Dallas / San Antonio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (warning for brief mentions of off-screen transphobia, bullying, and suicide statistics)

Houston is a gridlocked shitshow that leaves Grantaire feeling frayed at the edges. Despite waking up with plenty of time—if slightly sore on dirty sheets—and despite his phone insisting it’s a flat four hours from Baton Rouge, he barely makes it to the sprawling parking lot wasteland where they’ve booked this stop of the tour. 

He swaps out “Love the Light” for “Nothing Whole,” because it’s earlier and angrier and he needs the release. The crowd is restless, unsettled, like him. He finishes his set and immediately starts drinking. 

When it comes time for Friends! to take the mainstage, Grantaire stands a little sloppily in the back and watches the crowd, adoring, at Enjolras’s feet. They throw their fists in the air. They thrash and sing and lift each other up. In the front, a blonde girl rises, a dozen hands gripping underneath her. She screams the words perfectly in time, pitches forward, and goes down hard over the barricade at the front of the stage. 

Grantaire can’t see, but knows, that security will swoop in and pick the girl up. 

He leaves and spends the rest of his night in the van, prodding his guitar moodily. He gets down two more verses about eagles, but nothing he actually wants to say.

 

—

 

He sleeps through a text message from Eponine that reads, _dallas radio meet & greet with the mainstage acts. you’ve got a spot if you can get here by 10._ 

He can’t. Instead he rolls into town with stormclouds at his back—actual, not metaphorical—and plays his set to worried faces beneath an ever-darkening sky. 

The thunderstorm builds, imminent, inescapable, while Grantaire gets dinner. He makes it back to the van just as it unleashes itself. 

He keeps the windows cracked because he’s willing to trade his already-shitty upholstery for the cooler air the storm brings with it. The rain is torrential, dumping in sheets, pounding deafeningly against the pavement and the roof. He’s got a book and his whiskey and he feels a little like a sailor below decks for a great storm.

He thinks, at first, that he is imagining the pounding knock that sounds on the back door. It beats again. Grantaire throws the door open to find Enjolras standing there, just standing there, completely soaked. The rain splashes into the back and without words, Enjolras climbs in, dripping water all over the carpeted floor. He’s wearing the black skinny jeans and soft t-shirt he favors onstage. Both cling obscenely, hugging tight to muscles like a Hellenic sculptor’s dream. 

Enjolras perches in the corner, against the door, and drips. “I don’t want to get your bed wet,” he says.

Grantaire didn’t think he could fathom anything weirder than their night in Baton Rouge. This is weirder. This is Enjolras seeking him out, fighting hellacious weather to do it.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Oh good, you’re in a pleasant mood today,” Enjolras retorts. 

“We don’t usually hang out. I figured something was up.” He shrugs. 

Grantaire has often thought of Enjolras’s grace as particularly feline. Now he is like a wet cat, bristling and angry as he takes in his surroundings, the whiskey and the book propped on Grantaire’s still dirty sheets. “And you’ve been drinking already,” he sneers.

“Hey, _you_ came here,” Grantaire points out. “In the rain, no less. Are you okay?”

Enjolras looks like he wants to roll his eyes. He gestures to himself, still dripping wet. “I’m great, clearly.” He wipes a hand over his face. “I should just go.” He reaches for the door handle.

Grantaire catches him by the wrist. “I’m not letting you back out there in the rain.” Enjolras tugs and Grantaire loses his grip on the slick skin, but he makes no further move to leave. “Here, I have a towel you can use.” He digs it out of his overflowing suitcase and throws it over. 

Enjolras scrubs at his rain-darkened hair. He pats the towel on his t-shirt, a little, but it’s no use. 

Grantaire watches him, watches the wet skin he rubs turn pinkish. “Feel better?”

Enjolras purses his lips a little. “Sorry,” he says. “We’re supposed to be on cease fire terms, I know.”

“It’s okay.”

“Can I— I know this is hypocritical since I just called you out on it, but. Can I have a drink?”

Grantaire raises his eyebrows. “This must be one shit day you’re having.” He gets a half-shrug in response. “Of course you can have a drink. I’ll even find you a cup.” He grabs the bottle and two solo cups from a pack he’d stuck in his van a few days ago. He pours a generous helping of whiskey into each, and hands one over, sitting beside Enjolras.

Enjolras takes a gulp and winces. “That’s horrible,” he says.

“But it’s cheap,” Grantaire tells him after swallowing his own sip. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. You don’t have to explain why you’re here, or what’s happened, or anything. But I’m going to go back to reading. I have another book, if you want to do the same. Or you can just sit here.” He pauses. “Assuming you’re not needed on the mainstage?”

Enjolras shakes his head. “They canceled the rest of tonight’s lineup. The lightning.”

“I figured as much.” Grantaire digs around in a pile of stuff for a moment. “So your reading options are—”

“It’s fine, I’ll just…” He raises his cup, takes another swig, grimaces again. “I just really hate Texas. You know?”

“Mm, I can sympathize. But what did Texas do to you?”

“Not me. Our fans.” Grantaire is about to ask if he means the storm, the cancellation, but Enjolras begins again. “We had a radio thing this morning. Eponine said you might be there, actually. But you weren’t.”

“I overslept. What happened?”

“We were signing for a decent-sized line. All of us at tables, lined up, in the station parking lot. It’s usually great. The kids all come with a story they want to tell you. It makes it worth it.” Enjolras looks to Grantaire, who has nothing to add, then continues anyway. “One girl who came up to us, she was 18 or 19. She was obviously nervous. She started telling us about how much she loved our last album, how it helped her when she decided to transition last year.” He break off to take a drink.

“And?”

“The radio guys who were there for the event overheard her. They started laughing and saying, you know…” Grantaire nods. He might not know, but he can imagine. Enjolras looks relieved that he doesn’t have to repeat their words. He pauses, like he’s waiting for something.

Grantaire can only shrug. “Yeah, well, people are fucking terrible.”

Enjolras’s mouth is tight, a hard line. “That doesn’t excuse it.”

“No, of course not.”

“It’s not something you should just shrug off. Trans teens have an inordinately high rate of attempted suicide, up to 50% according to some studies.”

“I’m sorry,” Grantaire says honestly. “I didn’t mean to be flip. Or, I did, but it was inappropriate. But what can you do?” 

He means it rhetorically, but Enjolras says, “We, the band, we’ve supported anti-bullying legislation in the past. But it never feels like enough. I don’t feel like we do enough.” He looks down to his drink. This is, Grantaire thinks, the most affected he has ever seen Enjolras. It is harder to fight with this version of him.

“Well,” Grantaire says finally, “what did you do this morning?”

“I called them out where everyone could hear. And Combeferre got her address, so we can send her some merch.”

“That’s good then.”

“I wanted to do more,” he says. Close as they are, Grantaire can feel Enjolras tense, aggression flooding his words. “We used to fight all the time as kids, you know. Punks versus skinheads at school or at shows. When we started the band, or rather, when we started getting attention, I thought, I’ll never have to punch someone to make my point again. Because people listen to us onstage. People listen to me. Now I can’t even go out there and tell the crowd not to treat people like that. I can’t get up there and say that’s not fucking okay to do to a person.”

“You have seen the crowds at your shows, right?” Grantaire asks. “They aren’t exactly pacifists.”

“It’s different in the pit, that’s a release. That’s just pent-up energy coming out. That’s not defending systems of oppression.”

Two years ago, hell, even a week ago, Grantaire would’ve argued. He would’ve torn into Enjolras’s assumptions and lofty expectations. Instead, he says, “I don’t know what to say here. You don’t come to me for faith in humanity, Enjolras, you should know that by now.”

Enjolras looks at him, strained and unyielding. “I know.”

“Then why did you come?” 

“If I said I don’t know, would you believe it?”

“No,” Grantaire answers. He takes Enjolras’s empty cup from his hands, sets it with his own off to the side. “But I won’t call you on it.” He leans in purposefully and catches Enjolras’s mouth in a kiss. 

The angle is awkward, stuffed as they are in the corner of the van. Grantaire twists into it, puts his hand up to Enjolras’s shoulder, only to meet the unpleasant feel of his cold and wet t-shirt. He grips his fingers around Enjolras’s shoulder anyway, pressing on muscle and bone while his tongue presses its way into Enjolras’s mouth. He wants to get closer. He wants to pull Enjolras on top of him. Or he wants Enjolras to take charge again, the way he has done both times before. 

Enjolras, for his part, stays frustratingly still. He kisses back firmly but otherwise doesn’t move at all. 

Grantaire pulls away. “What do you want?” he asks, already a little breathless.

“I don’t know,” Enjolras tells him.

He shifts back at this, takes his hand from Enjolras’s shoulder. “Should I stop?”

Enjolras presses a small kiss to Grantaire’s lips. “No,” he answers. “Only, this isn’t very comfortable.” 

He could mean anything, the clothes, the corner of the van, the position. Grantaire can fix it all, he thinks, feeling more sure of himself for it. He moves aside and says, “Then let’s try something different.”

It takes some tugging, wet clothes sticking to wet skin, but Grantaire gets Enjolras stripped and laid out on the mattress. He will never get tired of seeing this, he thinks with wonder. Still clothed, Grantaire lies alongside the slightly damp, slightly cold, completely gorgeous body in the middle of his bed.

They kiss, Enjolras’s hands pulling Grantaire half on top of him. He holds tight while Grantaire’s hands roam. Grantaire traces the defined muscles of Enjolras’s arms, his chest, his stomach. They stay like that for long minutes, until Enjolras’s skin has shrugged off the clammy dampness of the rain. 

When Grantaire reaches down to palm Enjolras’s erection, he is stilled by a hand to the wrist. “Wait,” Enjolras says quietly, “I want— let me.” He goes for Grantaire’s shirt, then, hands brushing Grantaire’s chest as he tugs it off. 

Enjolras shifts his weight to roll them over. Outside, thunder rumbles as Enjolras helps Grantaire kick his pants off and away. 

The rain still pounds a steady rhythm. Grantaire doesn’t know what to expect, but it isn’t Enjolras leaning down to press kisses to his stomach, his hips, his cock. His face is still tense. Grantaire lets himself reach down and run fingers over Enjolras’s cheek and heavy brow. He summons a smile and says, “Go ahead.”

It’s all the permission Enjolras needs. He takes to the task like someone desperate to forget themselves for a moment, which Grantaire supposes he is. 

Grantaire, for his part, is lost to the sensations but rendered more than helpless by the view. Enjolras’s full lips, his long fingers—it’s almost too much to bear. Enjolras sucks him down with ease, holding his hips firmly so that Grantaire can’t buck, and then setting a leisurely pace. Or a torturous one, Grantaire can’t really decide. 

His orgasm is building slowly when Enjolras pulls off and sits up a little. “Lift your knees,” he says, and Grantaire obeys. Enjolras grips his inner thighs firmly, bends down, and presses his tongue right to Grantaire’s center. 

Grantaire bucks then, letting shocked sounds escape his mouth. Enjolras only presses in further, tongue lapping in firm strokes. He reaches up to fist Grantaire’s cock, squeezing a little on the upstroke, until Grantaire shivers and comes. 

Enjolras’s face is softer, eyes almost glassy, when he leans up and stretches himself half over Grantaire. He balances on knees and one hand, uses the other to strip his cock quickly and with purpose. He watches Grantaire hazily, eyes tracing his come-spattered stomach, his chest, his face. Grantaire feels laid open, unable to hide, but he locks his eyes on Enjolras anyway, sees his face twist up as he comes. 

Grantaire reaches for a shirt, something to clean himself off with, but Enjolras snags the towel he’d used earlier. He wipes Grantaire’s stomach gently. Then he tucks himself beside Grantaire, face resting in the crook of his neck. 

If the rain has let up, it’s only minimally. Grantaire half-expects Enjolras to leave anyway. Instead, Enjolras closes his eyes, lays a careful hand on Grantaire’s stomach, and stays.

 

—

 

They doze like that for an hour or so. When Grantaire wakes, Enjolras is still curled around him. The rain has slowed to the occasional tap on the roof of the van. 

It feels like they’ve stepped out of the world, at the very least out of the world of the tour. Grantaire feels anchored here, not terrified now but touched. Enjolras needed distraction and came to him. Enjolras had been tender, had wanted to please. 

Grantaire combs his fingers through the soft blond hair at his temples. He looks younger, like this, less troubled, less weighted. Grantaire knows this moment can’t stretch much longer—even now Enjolras is shifting and coming awake—but he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and wishes.

Instinct tells him Enjolras will make a quick exit, but he fights it back the best he can. Beside him, Enjolras squints his eyes open, rolls and stretches. His hands bump the seat beyond their heads. “How long did I sleep?” he asks, voice still rough with waking up.

Grantaire gropes for his phone. “Not long. It’s just now 8:00 pm.” 

“Mmm,” Enjolras hums in response. He rolls back over and tucks himself alongside Grantaire again. 

“Do you need to go?” Grantaire can’t stop himself from asking.

Enjolras’s nose rubs along his neck. “In a bit,” he says. Grantaire shivers a little at the breath on his skin. “Just, let me stay here a minute longer.”

Grantaire would let him—anything. He just says, “Of course.”

 

—

 

Eponine corners him as he comes offstage in San Antonio. “I haven’t seen you in days,” she says. “I knew Dallas was a longshot, you were probably still sleeping. But the rest of the time, where’ve you been?” As she speaks, she backs him into a corner formed by a plywood banister and someone else’s drumkit. 

“You saw me like 3 days ago, in Baton Rouge,” Grantaire says. “Remember?” 

“Yes, but that’s not my point.”

“Then what is your point?” He leans against the banister, hoping for casual.

“Duh, I miss you.” She squints at him. “And I want to know what happened when you and Enjolras were the _last two people_ at the party.”

Grantaire crosses one foot over the other, completely shattering any illusion of casual as he kicks a cymbal stand and jumps at the ensuing crash. 

Eponine crows, “Ohh, now you really have to tell me.”

One of the techs is looking over at them, murder in her eyes. “Fine,” Grantaire says, flashing the girl a meek smile, “but can we not do this right here?”

They settle on the Jondrettes’ bus as an acceptable location for this talk that Grantaire absolutely does not want to have. Eponine kicks Marius and Gavroche out of the back lounge with a shrug. “Go see some live music,” she says as she slides the door closed in their faces.

“Nice,” Grantaire teases.

“Children,” she says. “They’re driving me crazy.”

Grantaire sits on the couch and pulls his feet up. “You really shouldn’t let Marius hang out with such a bad influence.”

“Your wit is noted, but you’re not distracting me from this conversation.”

“What conversation?”

Eponine perches on the built-in coffee table, facing Grantaire directly. “The one where you tell me if you’re sleeping with Enjolras.”

“Um—”

“I knew it! Oh my god, I knew it.”

Grantaire feels the heat rising in his cheeks. “I didn’t say anything.”

Eponine shakes her head fondly. “You don’t have to.”

Grantaire flexes his fingers, wishing he had a drink to hold or something to do with his hands. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything either, you know?”

She waves a flippant hand. “Of course. But like, wow. This is huge. This is huge, right?”

“I don’t know,” Grantaire says. “It just kind of happened.”

“One time? Many times? Dating or just fuck buddies? Or, let me guess, you haven’t talked about it?”

He glares at her. “A few times, we haven’t talked about it, I don’t even want to talk about it. It’s just. Whatever.” 

Eponine glares back. There’s no way Grantaire can out-stare her, she’s the master of it. He drops his eyes to the floor. 

“R,” she says, drawing out the syllable portentously. “I know you. You’ve just been going along with whatever because you’re too scared to ask him to clarify anything. It’s happened a couple times now, so you’re pretty sure it’s not a fluke, but you’re not totally sure, because you’re you.”

“Eponine—” he starts.

“You’re halfway to love already because you have the biggest fucking heart under that mop of hair and that adorable smile. You’ve wanted him for years, you can’t trust why you’ve gotten him, and you don’t want to rock the boat. But you can’t just let him dictate all the terms.”

“Eponine, seriously,” he says. “Get off my dick about it.”

She holds up her hands, mock-conciliatory. “I’m right, though.” With her foot, she nudges his knee. “I’ll stop. I just get worried about you.”

Grantaire scoffs, but it’s something like a laugh too. “You’re one to talk. How are things with Combeferre?”

“What things with Combeferre? We haven’t been alone together since Florida.”

“So he’s ignoring you?”

“Not exactly? He’s polite in social settings. Sometimes I catch him looking at me. But I don’t know.” She shakes her head, loose fall of hair moving at her shoulders. “I think I messed it up too much. I mean, I slept with his drummer, you know?” She lets her head drop dramatically into her hands. “Ugh, I can’t believe I slept with a _drummer_.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, “that was a rookie move.”

“Fuck off,” Eponine groans, but she’s laughing. 

Grantaire snags the pillow next to his leg and hits her in the arm with it. She shrieks and dives forward, wrestling it from his hands so she can swat him instead. Howling in fake pain, he curls into himself, trying to block with his hands.

Through the door, Gav yells, “No pillow fights in the lounge!”

They pause, guiltily, and then they hear a scuffle, a shriek, and the door sliding open. Cosette sprints into the room, Gav on her heels. She raises her own pillow and attacks them both with glee. Grantaire thinks he hears her chant at Eponine, “Take! Him! On! A! Date!” The words are timed perfectly to the thwacks of her pillow. 

“Remember what happened last time with the TV,” Gav protests loudly, so they turn almost as one and rope him into the playfight. 

Eponine wraps him in a big-sister headlock and delivers what Grantaire knows personally is an incredibly embarrassing noogie. “You’re far too responsible for a teenaged boy,” she pronounces while he flails.

It’s only when they’ve worn themselves out with laughing that they notice Marius, hovering at the doorway. “Show’s in 10,” he says awkwardly. 

Eponine throws a pillow at him.  


	8. Albuquerque / Mesa / Las Vegas

The southwest is stretched almost to breaking. Grantaire drives all night from San Antonio to Albuquerque, crashes, plays his set bleary-eyed and barely stifling his yawns. He should sleep again, he knows—he’s got to be on the road to Mesa sinfully early in the morning—but he catches sight of Enjolras in the crowd and can’t help himself. When his set is done, he ducks past the barrier and goes to him.

“You sounded good,” Enjolras says, in lieu of a greeting. The sun is bright in the open desert sky, and Enjolras squints into it, but his face looks soft too. Not unwelcoming. 

“I felt terrible,” Grantaire answers. He kicks himself immediately for not being able to be gracious, to take what is offered. “Are you staying to watch Jehan?”

“He’s next, right?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, “I saw his name on the call sheet. Should just be a minute.”

Enjolras nods. They stand in peaceable silence, the sun beating down on Enjolras’s blond hair. Grantaire sneaks furtive looks while they wait. Enjolras is crowned in gold—if Grantaire were still an art student, if he hadn’t quit when he’d realized one guitar was cheap compared to endless tubes of paint and canvases, he’d want to paint this. It’s eminently paintable. For his own part, Grantaire just feels flushed and groggy. Sweat beads in a long line down the planes of his back, evaporating as it goes in the dry desert air. 

They’re still waiting when Combeferre and Courfeyrac descend upon them, Courf with his usual wince-inducing high fives, Combeferre with a smile and a nod. 

“I’m telling you,” Courf says seriously to Combeferre, “it’s a terrible idea. A huge mistake. A grave error.”

“What is?” Enjolras asks. 

Combeferre rolls his eyes. “I told Courf I’m thinking about shaving my head.” He runs a hand through his sweat-damp shaggy hair. “It’s too hot for this.”

“You’re too hot to ruin it,” Courf interjects. “Grantaire, back me up here.”

Grantaire looks between them all. “I don’t— uh. I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s fine,” Combeferre says. “I didn’t actually need anyone’s approval. I just haven’t decided yet.”

Courf snorts. “So pro and con it. Write it out like you do everything else, you know you want to.” Combeferre looks away, and Courf says, “Oh my god, you have already, haven’t you?”

Combeferre sighs a long-suffering sigh. He opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by a flurry of activity in the crowd. 

 Jehan takes the stage to some hoots and cheers, because apparently poetry is making a comeback or something. Grantaire has heard that Jehan is developing a little following of his own. That’s pretty cool, Jehan and his tiny brigade of boys and girls who love 50s starlets and language. 

He reads a couple of poems Grantaire has heard before, then says to the crowd, “I have a new piece I’m working on, inspired by this summer and this tour. It’s still in progress, but I’m going to read it for you.”

The poem is about a yellow-haired boy named Aucassin, who, as far as Grantaire can tell, rides into battle thinking only of his love, distracted to the point of danger. At least, Grantaire’s pretty sure that’s it. There are swords, and horses, and flowers, he heard all that stuff, and a repeated verse that asks, “Who goes to paradise?”

Grantaire looks over to Enjolras, to see if he’s making any better sense of the words. Enjolras looks pained. He’s kind of flushed, eyes wide as he watches Jehan. 

It’s a long poem but it’s over soon enough. Grantaire claps with the crowd, then leans in and says, “I love the sounds but I never really understand what he’s talking about. Do you?”

Courf just laughs. 

Enjolras shakes his head a bit. “Sometimes,” he says. He shifts his stance, seems to shrug off whatever had been bothering him, face back to its normal, gorgeous state. Probably just the heat, Grantaire thinks. It is unbearably hot, like standing in an oven. 

“We have to go set up,” Combeferre reminds his bandmates.

Courf turns to Grantaire. “Are you driving tonight?”

“No, in the morning,” Grantaire answers.

“Cool. See you later,” he says with a wink as Combeferre tugs him away to the backstage.

Enjolras lingers a moment. He clears his throat. 

“Maybe we can hang out?” Grantaire hazards. He still doesn’t know how this works. As much as he hates to admit it, Eponine had been right about that.

Enjolras quirks his lips in some approximation of a smile. “Sure.” 

 

—

 

How it works is like this: he runs into Enjolras somewhere in the depths of the bus village, and Enjolras pushes him against a trailer, kisses him until he can barely stand. They never even make it to the usual lawn chair party congregating by The Rosa Luxemburg Experience’s bus. Grantaire leads him back to the van instead, and they fuck with the front windows wide open. Face to face this time, and Enjolras keeps his hand pressed over Grantaire’s mouth, keeps him quiet in the dark. The seats block them from view, but the sounds of the tour, the buses, the party in the distance, make Grantaire feel that they are in and out of the world at the same time. They’re in some little space they’ve carved out just for themselves, with skin and sweat and teeth and tongues. 

The hand to his mouth makes Grantaire squirm, but not as much Enjolras’s face pressed right up against his hairline, mouth at Grantaire’s ear. His grunts are mostly breath, skating across Grantaire’s overheated skin. They keep him grounded in the moment. 

“Touch yourself,” Enjolras commands in a whisper. Grantaire does, and comes between them, muffled sounds straining against Enjolras’s palm.

 

—

 

In Mesa, some boy breaks his arm in the pit, a nasty compound fracture. Gavroche sees him go down and pulls him out, dragging the boy to safety until the medics can show up. He comes back to the buses splashed with just a little blood. 

Grantaire stops by to check on them and Eponine loses it, ranting stridently about Gav’s heroics. 

“—just too reckless, you know, he never stops to think, always just acts, and I love him, I swear, but he’s so stupid sometimes and one—”

She loses her place when Combeferre walks by, his newly-buzzed hair and grown-in beard proving that Courf was very wrong.

“Ep,” Grantaire says, before she can start again. “Take a breath.” He pauses, makes a face until she actually does it. “Gav is fine.”

“I know he is,” she spits back.

“You need to relax. Go talk to Combeferre,” he suggests.

She glares. “How is that supposed to relax me?”

“I don’t know, I find looking at attractive people very relaxing.”

“Ugh, you are insufferably smug sometimes. And don’t lie, you find looking at Enjolras panic-inducing.”

Grantaire shrugs. “It’s weird what you get used to,” he says. He nudges Eponine. “Go talk to Combeferre anyway.”

She heaves herself off the picnic table bench. “Fine. But only so you and Cosette shut up about it.” 

Grantaire watches her Chuck Taylors kick up dust as she drags her feet to catch up with him. 

 

—

 

They play the parking lot of the Luxor in Las Vegas—one of the parking lots, only a block from the casino—which means everyone disappears into the chaos of the strip almost the moment they step off stage. Joly tries to convince Grantaire to come with them. Normally he would, but after a particularly nasty chat with his label, he’s not feeling up to the challenge of wasting money he may never earn back.

He knocks at the door of the Friends! bus instead. Enjolras answers, holding a box of cereal. 

“Hi?” Grantaire says, awkward now that he’s here.

“Hey,” Enjolras replies, careless as always. He holds the door open in invitation, gestures for Grantaire to sit in the kitchen area. “What’s up?”

“Just, uh, wondering what you’re doing tonight. You didn’t go to the strip with Courf? I heard him, he was rallying the troops like going into battle.”

Enjolras laughs a little. “Not my scene. But I’m surprised you didn’t go.”

“I’m trying out this new thing where I make the responsible decision for once,” Grantaire says.

“How’s that going for you?”

“Well, I’m watching a hot blond eat cereal out of the box at 11:00 pm, so.” He smiles. “Pretty good so far.”

“Evening snack. You want some?” Enjolras holds the box out. No reaction to the compliment at all. 

Grantaire’s sure his face lights up with the idea that comes to him. “No thanks,” he says, “I’m hungry for something different.”

Enjolras pauses, hand cupping Corn Pops halfway between the box and his mouth. “Oh?”

“You up for a field trip?” Grantaire waggles his eyebrows.

“Why not,” Enjolras says. 

He plays it cool, face that usual impenetrable mask, but Grantaire is sure that Enjolras is surprised when they veer away from his van and back towards the rapidly disassembling tour landscape. Grantaire is sure-footed but Enjolras trails a step behind him, hesitating at each turn. 

“We have to be quick if we’re going to make it,” Grantaire whispers, trying to play up the mystery. Perplexed Enjolras furrows his brow adorably. It’s not at all like angry Enjolras, or even serious and concentrating on chords Enjolras.

Grantaire should probably stop categorizing Enjolras’s facial expressions while he’s ahead. 

They dodge past the empty sound tent being taken down. Its board and wires are already wrapped and loaded, and just a few scattered techs remain, packing away the last of things. Most of the vendors have closed and packed up for the night, but Grantaire sees the back door open on the one he’s aiming for. 

He stops beside it. Enjolras pulls up short, looking a little lost. Grantaire knocks loudly on the side of the truck. “Juana, _mi querida_ , are you in there?” he asks loudly into the open door. 

“¿ _Qué_? ¿Grantaire, _eres tú_?” Juana appears in the door, her lined face looking tired after a full day in the food truck. “What are you doing, stopping by so late?”

“ _Lo siento_ , Juana, I should’ve come by earlier. Is it too late for tacos?” Grantaire fixes her with a hopeful look. 

For a moment Juana just squints at them, looking like she’ll refuse. 

Enjolras shifts awkwardly beside Grantaire. “We’re so sorry to have bothered you, ma’am. Please finish closing up for the night.” He starts to tug Grantaire’s arm as if to pull him away. 

Juana watches the exchange and bursts into laughter. “ _No es gran cosa_ , you two. Is pork okay? Everything else is put away.”

Grantaire makes a smug face as Enjolras blushes just a little. He turns to Juana. “Perfect. _Gracias_.”

“ _De nada_ ,” she says, already turning back into the truck to fix their plates.

Enjolras elbows Grantaire. “You brought me out to watch you ask for favors from offshift vendors?”

“I brought you out for tacos. The best tacos you’ve ever had. You’ll see.”

In the truck, Juana hums happily to herself as she heaps pork onto homemade blue corn tortillas. It smells amazing. Grantaire takes a deep breath, and feels Enjolras do the same beside him.

He softens, just a little, probably because no one can stay mad in the face of Juana’s food. “How do you even know her?” he asks. 

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “She’s had the truck at every stop since San Antonio.”

Enjolras blinks. “Oh.”

In a couple of minutes, Juana brings them plates heaped with shredded pork, onions, cilantro, and salsa. The food overflows the tortillas, and she has already stuck plastic forks on the side of each plate. 

Grantaire reaches for his wallet. 

“It’s on me tonight, R,” she says, rolling the nickname like the Spanish letter. She hands the plates out to them, then leans in. “I like your _novio_ , he is very polite.”

 Grantaire chokes a cough and feels himself blush horribly. Enjolras looks confused. 

Juana laughs. “Now go eat somewhere else, I have to finish closing.” She makes a shooing motion with her hands. 

“Goodnight, ma’am,” Enjolras says as they walk away. 

There’s no grass to be seen, so they find a bench to sit on, balancing their plates carefully between them. 

“I didn’t know you speak Spanish,” Enjolras says, between bites. 

Grantaire shrugs. “Only a bit. Picked it up hanging around with Eponine’s family. I can order food and flirt, but I’m definitely not fluent.” Grantaire pauses. “Do you speak any…?”

Enjolras nods. “A little.”

Grantaire ducks his face and focuses intently on his food. He needs to change the subject. “How are your tacos?”

“Good. Really good.” He chews, swallows. Grantaire tries not to watch his throat working as he does it. “You didn’t contradict her,” he finally says. “When she thought I was your boyfriend.”

Grantaire wishes he’d thought to stop by the beer truck. He needs something to wash down his food. He needs something to do with his hands other than clutch his plate. “Uh…” Grantaire picks up his fork. Puts it back down. Puts the plate down, rubs his hands on his jeans. “I… um.”

Enjolras watches him, something like a smile coming over his face. “I’m kidding.”

“What?”

“I said I’m kidding.” He is definitely something like smiling. “It’s okay, sometimes it’s easier not to correct people. I get it.”

Grantaire lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Right. Yeah.”

Enjolras turns his smile back to his taco, and they eat for a few minutes in silence. Grantaire isn’t sure he’d could call it comfortable. His heart is still beating a little too fast, but it’s hard to stay panicked in the face of such good food. 

“So,” Enjolras says in a bit. “What are you doing after this?”

Grantaire frowns. “After this taco?”

“No, I meant after the tour.”

“Oh, right. I’m supposed to cut a new record.”

“Supposed to?” Enjolras asks.

“My management dumped me a few weeks ago and my label is being standoffish about the whole thing. So we’ll see if it happens.”

It’s Enjolras’s turn to frown. “Why wouldn’t it happen?”

“Well, when you announce then scrap a whole album and waste weeks of studio time in the process, labels start to get jumpy.” Grantaire shrugs. “I think mine is still deciding whether they want to take the risk or let me go before something’s inked.”

“I didn’t know you abandoned an album,” Enjolras says. 

Shit. Grantaire cannot catch a break in conversation tonight. “It was a couple of years ago,” he says vaguely. “It really wasn’t a big deal but everyone has been holding it over my head ever since.”

Enjolras sets his plate down. His face looks very serious. Grantaire wonders if it’s too late to run. “What happens if your label doesn’t renew your deal?” he asks. 

Grantaire shrugs again. It feels like all he can do. “I go back to waiting tables and sleeping on Eponine’s couch,” he answers. 

Enjolras looks thoughtful, but he doesn’t say anything. 

Grantaire looks down the row of vendors, all closing or closed. There’s almost no one on the festival grounds at this point, but he sees two familiar figures walking slowly, aimlessly, about 20 feet away.

“Speaking of Ep,” he says, gesturing furtively in their direction.

Enjolras turns to see Eponine, walking side by side with Combeferre. “Are they,” he pauses. “Are they on a date?”

Grantaire laughs. “I don’t know, but I hope so.” He squints. “I don’t think they’re holding hands. Can you tell?”

Enjolras’s brow furrows in yet a different way. “It’s too dark. But I don’t think they are.”

Grantaire digs his phone out of his pocket. _way to go xxx_ , he texts to Ep. 

In the dark, he can see her phone screen when she pulls it out and unlocks it. She stops, looking around until her eyes land on Grantaire and Enjolras on the bench. Grantaire’s pretty sure she flips him off, but it’s really too dark to tell. 

Enjolras notices the time on Grantaire’s phone. “It’s getting late,” he says. “Thanks for the tacos.”

Grantaire picks up their empty plates. “You’re welcome. We should head back, I guess.” He stands and goes to throw their plates in a nearby trash can.

When he turns back around, Enjolras is looking at him. “Courfeyrac will be out for hours still,” he says. “And if Combeferre is here…”

Grantaire is glad he’s not still eating, because he definitely would’ve choked on his food. “Are you asking me back to your bus?”

Enjolras steps close to him. “I thought a change of scenery might be nice.”

Grantaire breathes very slowly. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Okay.”

 

—

 

The built-in couch in the back lounge of the Friends! bus has been folded out into a bed, which Grantaire didn’t even know was possible. He’s not complaining, though, especially not when Enjolras pushes him down onto it. He nudges Grantaire’s arms up over his head, then slides off his shirt and leaves it tangled around his wrists. Enjolras holds both wrists in one hand, letting the shirt help him like a restraint, while Grantaire bucks under him. 

Enjolras kisses him dirtily, teeth scraping his bottom lip, and keeps kissing until Grantaire stops squirming. He feels himself cede control. He knows Enjolras feels it too. When Enjolras releases his hands, Grantaire leaves them where they are. He scrapes his stubble down along Grantaire’s chest, kissing and letting his cheek and chin scratch. Grantaire watches the skin turn blotchy red. Watches Enjolras pull off his jeans and boxers, and then come back to kiss roughly at Grantaire’s hips and thighs. 

He can imagine what his face must look like, eyes heavy-lidded, mouth slack, giving away everything, giving away enough that it makes Enjolras stop when he looks up and sees it. He pulls away, and Grantaire wants to protest, but then Enjolras is kissing him, gently. “Are you okay?” he asks.

Grantaire nods slowly.

“Shit,” Enjolras says. “I feel like we should’ve negotiated this. You’re really okay?” He reaches up to disentangle the shirt from Grantaire’s wrists. 

Grantaire’s hands tingle a little as he brings his arms down, wrapping one around Enjolras’s back because there’s nowhere else he can put it. “I’m fine, I swear. Please don’t stop.” 

Enjolras’s eyes search his face. Grantaire doesn’t know what they find, but eventually he says, “You have to tell me if I push too hard. Or do something you don’t like. Or anything. You can red light anytime you need to.”

“I will,” Grantaire says, even though he knows he probably won’t. 

Enjolras draws it out after that, his will to control not so much replaced by but giving way to torturous slowness. He kisses back down Grantaire’s chest, softer this time. He hesitates a moment but seems comforted when Grantaire brushes fingers through his soft hair. Grantaire moans as Enjolras lowers his mouth onto his cock. He uses his hand too, enveloping Grantaire, steady sensations building until Grantaire is panting raggedly. 

It isn’t long before Grantaire tightens his fingers in warning. Enjolras swallows his orgasm, keeps swallowing and licking until Grantaire whines and tries to pull his hips away. 

Enjolras pulls off and looks up. Grantaire looks down at him, trying for all the world to seem like he’s in control of himself. 

“Can I fuck you?” Enjolras asks quietly. 

Grantaire isn’t so gone that he can’t roll his eyes. “God, yes. Always.”

It’s slow, too, almost too slow to bear. Enjolras slicks his fingers and spends forever stretching Grantaire open. Grantaire feels like he might break, might start sobbing at any moment, it’s just so good. But he knows that’d only frighten Enjolras again, so he keeps it in check. 

Finally, finally, Enjolras buries himself inside Grantaire. His hips roll a slow and steady rhythm. Grantaire may have already come but he also feels certain he might die from this. Death by the most agonizingly good sex imaginable. Enjolras hovers over him, rolling his hips and looking like every fantasy Grantaire’s ever had. 

His hands hold Enjolras’s sharp hips, but now he removes one and nudges it against Enjolras’s hand, where it’s pressed into the mattress. Enjolras takes the hint. He pulls Grantaire’s hand back up above his head. He holds it there, half at the wrist this time, and half like he’s holding Grantaire’s hand. Grantaire moans and thrusts back, trying to show Enjolras how good it feels. 

Fingers tangled together, Enjolras leans down into Grantaire and kisses him. The press of their mouths gets sloppy as Enjolras’s thrusts lose their steady rhythm. His hand clamps down tightly, and he comes. 

It’s several long minutes before Grantaire can heave himself off the bed and shuffle back into his clothing. 

Enjolras walks him to the door of the bus. This time he kisses Grantaire softly before they part. 


	9. Pomona / Ventura / Mountain View / Wheatland

Three and a half hours driving through the desert is enough for Grantaire. He pulls into the parking lot in Pomona thanking the universe for California, its trees, its grass, its blessedly cool summer days. Then he beelines for the Jondrettes’ bus.

If he knocks, he’ll have to explain to Gavroche and Cosette and Marius why he’s there. Instead, he brings his guitar and steals a chair from The Rosa Luxemburg Experience’s makeshift patio, already set up next door. He picks out an approximation of a tune he’d been thinking of on the drive, and he waits for Eponine to emerge.

Five minutes later, the Rosas’ bus door opens slowly and a very disheveled Courfeyrac trips his way down the tiny stairs. His grin is bright enough to be seen from space. He’s still tugging his clothing into place, but he interrupts the process to high five Grantaire. Their hands make a particularly jaunty smacking noise as they connect.

“I’d ask,” Grantaire says, “but I feel certain I know the answer.”

Courf regards him with mock gravity. “Better that you don’t ask. Better that I don’t try to explain. Some experiences transcend the boundaries of language; to speak of them would only sully them.” He pauses. “But I will say that winning $500 in Vegas last night was but the beginning of the adventure.” And with that, he’s gone.

An echo of his smile lingers on Grantaire’s face, as he watches Courf make his way back to his own bus. It’s still there a moment later when Eponine throws open the Jondrettes’ bus door and clomps into view.

She drops to the ground and sits, heavily, on the last step. Her knees come up and she rests her elbows on them, regarding Grantaire closely. “You’re in an unbearably good mood,” she pronounces.

“And you’re in a curiously bad one.” Grantaire strums an ominous chord as punctuation.

“Just tired.” She purses her lips at his raised eyebrow. “Not like that. I need coffee. And something to do that isn’t the same fucking thing I’ve done for the past month.” She stands and pulls out her phone. “Drive me to a Starbucks. We need to discuss the setlist anyway.”

“Setlist? Are you and Cosette changing something up?”

“Yeah,” Eponine says, not looking up from her phone. “You’re doing a song with us tonight.”

 

—

 

It’s far from the first time Grantaire has joined the Jondrettes onstage, but they’re usually playing dive bars in Brooklyn. Not the mainstage of a massive tour, at 8:00 pm, on what’s essentially the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Grantaire will not panic. He tells himself this resolutely on the drive to and from coffee, as Eponine lists off her three options for acceptable songs, all his. He tells himself this as he plays his own set. He tells himself this as he stands on the side of the stage that night, waiting for his cue, listening to the girls’ stage banter and watching random musicians and techs come and go.

They call him out soon enough, and a tech hands him a much nicer guitar than his. While he’s adjusting the strap, Cosette tells the crowd, “This is our dear friend Grantaire, we wanted to bring him out to play a song for y’all.” Her tone is conspiratorial, and the sea of faces leans in towards her as she speaks. “He hasn’t put it on an album yet, but it’s our favorite.”

Grantaire ducks his head, smiling. “Thanks, Cosette. Thanks, everyone. This song’s called ‘The Toad Looking Upwards.’”

He strums the opening chords, and he doesn’t panic. The girls’ drummer comes in right on time, and Cosette and Eponine follow after that, picking counterrhythms that make his little song sound huge as it pours out of the mainstage speaker stacks.

It feels good, with a whole band behind him, and it feels scary, with a huge crowd staring up at him, and it feels weird, that Eponine had cornered him into playing this song in particular. Grantaire sings the words, and he still doesn’t panic. At least Enjolras isn’t actually there to hear it.

It’s over soon. Almost too soon, just as Grantaire is thinking he could get used to this sound, this crowd, this level.

He heads offstage, waving to the applauding crowd, and walks straight into Enjolras.

Grantaire yelps, “Sorry,” and spins to flee, but Enjolras catches his wrist.

“We’re on next,” he says right into Grantaire’s ear. “Be at your van after that. I’m going to want to fuck you.”

Grantaire is. Enjolras does.

 

—

 

It’s less than two hours from Pomona to Ventura. Grantaire takes advantage of the extra time by finding a rundown laundromat in a strip mall and washing his clothes for the first time since the tour began.

His van smells like clean sheets and clean laundry when he gets to the fairgrounds. He walks through the bus village thinking his day is made. It doesn’t get better than freshly-washed clothes, that pleasant post-sex sensation, and the mild feeling of late June on the Pacific coast.

Then he turns a corner and sees Enjolras and Eponine talking intently, and thinks, damn. Jinxed that.

He doesn’t know what they’re up to but it can’t be good. For him. They’re leaned up against a bus, and Eponine has her phone out, texting as they talk.

Grantaire only realizes he’s stopped dead in his tracks when Jehan slides up beside him.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Grantaire shakes himself a bit. “Yeah,” he says. He waves a hand towards the conspirators. “Just wondering how much trouble I’m in.”

Jehan smiles brightly. “I don’t think you have too much to worry about.” He looks from Enjolras’s distant figure back to Grantaire. “You heard my poem the other day, right? Did you like it?”

“Yes?” Grantaire says tentatively.

Jehan claps him on the shoulder. “You see what I mean, then. You’ll be fine.”

Grantaire puzzles as Jehan walks cheerily away. He feels certain he’s missed something. He’s just on the edge of figuring it out when he hears Eponine shout.

“R!” she calls. “We can see you standing there. Get over here.”

“Hi,” he says as he walks up to them. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Enjolras says.

Eponine sends a lightning fast text and then looks up. “He says he needs a few days to make calls,” she tells Enjolras.

Grantaire can feel his brow furrow.

“It’s nothing,” Eponine says to his unspoken question. “I gotta go help Gav with something, see you guys later.” She slides her phone into her pocket. “Oh, and Valjean set up a press thing tomorrow. R, you should be there. I’ll text you the details.” She’s gone before Grantaire can respond.

Enjolras kisses him lightly. “I have to go too.”

Grantaire just stands there, blinking in their wake. Not panicking.

 

—

 

He’s late to the damn press thing. It turns out to be a group interview-slash-junket, a profile of the bands and the tour for a national magazine still carting the word “alternative” around in their title like that means anything. And he’s late, despite six texts from Eponine counting down the moment he has to get on the road to Mountain View in order to make it on time.

He comes tripping into the Shoreline’s VIP lounge, where a guy in black frame glasses has set up an mp3 recorder and is currently trying to wrangle the assembled members of the Jondrettes and Friends!, while Marius and Gavroche throw tiny cheese blocks at each other from opposite ends of the bar.

“Shit,” Grantaire says, which is not a great way to announce oneself, he realizes. Eponine waves him over and scoots to make room for him to sit next to her. “Sorry, sorry,” he says as he gets settled. The interview pauses for just a second and then turns back to the guys.

“What does a big tour like this do for the band, do you think?” He’s looking at Combeferre, but Enjolras opens his mouth first.

“It’s huge for us,” he says seriously, and everyone turns to look at him. “Getting to play to crowds of this size every night—it’s better than anything. And not just for us, not just for how we feel. We love the feedback, sure. But it’s a chance to be with the people who make us what we are. It’s a chance to give back to them, to say thank you. We wouldn’t be anywhere without the kids who come to these shows.” He takes a breath. “They’re the spark; we’re just there to fan the flames.”

“That’s a striking metaphor,” the journalist guy says. He’s been hanging on every word. Grantaire feels Eponine shift impatiently next to him. “What are you burning down?”

Courfeyrac laughs. “What do you got?” He raises the glass of amber liquid in front of him in a toast. Bourbon, Grantaire thinks. Probably top shelf. Probably on the magazine’s dime, there to get them all talking.

Journalist guy turns back to Enjolras. “So then, how did it feel not to play Dallas? I heard you got rained out.”

Grantaire feels himself pale, drops his eyes to the table and the untouched drink in front of Eponine.

“It was hard,” Enjolras answers. “Anytime we say we’re going to play and then don’t, it feels like a blow. A betrayal.” On his pause, Grantaire looks up. Enjolras isn’t looking at him. “We would’ve played in the rain,” he continues, eyes fixed on the interviewer. “We’d rather play than do anything else.”

Grantaire’s fingers itch for Eponine’s glass. He tugs his hair instead, where it feels messy and unkempt.

The interviewer turns to the girls. “How was that rain day for you?”

Cosette’s laugh is delicate. “We were sad not to play, too, but we’re glad the tour puts safety first, you know? It would be terrible if any of us got struck by lightning or something.”

The guy nods. “And how do you deal with all this weather stuff?”

“What do you mean?” Eponine asks.

“Well,” he says, adjusting his glasses. “It’s summer, it’s hot, it’s rainy. Here you are surrounded by all these dirty guys. But you look great, and, and, if I may, beautiful. How do you— take care of yourself so well on tour?”

There’s a moment of silence, the room holding its collective breath, and Grantaire looks over just in time to see Eponine’s face go deadly.

“Are you serious with this shit?” She waits. No one responds. “Are you actually fucking serious?”

Cosette puts a hand on her shoulder. “Ep—”

“No, fuck this.” She turns to the interviewer, who now looks like he’d crawl under the table if he could. “And fuck you. Questions about how we stay beautiful on tour? You asked them actual questions about their music, their careers. And we get ‘how often do you shower and do your makeup.’” She stands, shoves her way past Grantaire. “Sorry, Cosette, tell Valjean I fucking refuse.”

She slams the door open and disappears into the glaring sunlight outside, Gav close on her heels. Marius is still frozen by the bar, holding a pile of cheese cubes in his hand.

The interviewer clears his throat.

“That was awkward,” Grantaire says to him. “For you, I mean.”

The guy squints at him, then flips his notebook over. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all, “who are you? I don’t have it in my notes.”

Grantaire reaches for the drink Eponine has abandoned, throws it all back in one gulp. “Oh, me?” he says, voice rough from the swallow. “I’m just thirsty.” He plunks the glass back on the table.

Journalist guy frowns. “Right, anyway. Enjolras, we were talking about fire.” Enjolras perks up again, looks thoughtful. The guy continues. “We live in an age of revolution. Egypt, Libya, now Ukraine. What do you think of it all?”

“Well,” he says slowly.

Combeferre coughs a little. “We watch that stuff with interest, of course, but we’d never want to pretend that we can speak to what’s happening in that context. We’re just three white kids from Florida, you know?”

Enjolras nods. “Combeferre’s right. But at the same time, we stand in solidarity. We’re not totally outside of it. We see what we do as inherently political. And we hope—that energy, in the streets, that’s the same energy we feel in our crowds.” He rocks forward, gathering momentum. “Punk has always been about challenging the status quo. About saying that things could be better. Life could be better. People could be freer. We want people to experience moments of freedom, when they hear us play. We want them to take that back into their lives and say, How can we feel like this all the time? How can we be this free?”

Grantaire’s fingers twitch on the empty glass. He rolls the bottom rim on the table, then stops when the interviewer shoots him a look.

Enjolras is still talking. “The turn of the earth is the turn of the tides. The future is unwritten, as Joe Strummer used to say. But we know it’s better. There’s better. It’s waiting for us. And every time we play a song and someone feels what we feel, reaches for that freedom, they make the world—”

“Better too?” the interviewer asks, finishing Enjolras’s sentence amiably. He’s been nodding and scribbling, looking rapt. “You’re playing music for the long march towards progress?”

Grantaire barks out a laugh, unable to stop himself in time. “Sorry, I just. Are you actually listening to yourselves? You can’t tell a sexist comment when it nearly gets you punched in the face—which she should have done, by the way,” Grantaire hears Cosette murmur an agreement underneath his words, “you deserve it—but you sit here talking about progress? And punk rock? Spare me, please. For every Egypt there’s a Russia; for every step forward, at least one step back. The future isn’t unwritten. ‘All history is nothing but wearisome repetition,’ and we’re just playing out a moment, the same moment, over and over again. Fuck your _éclaircissement_ bullshit, Enjolras. Progress is not assured—and we’re not climbing ever onwards towards the light. We’re just pigs and always will be, but only some of us can actually admit to being down here in the dirt.”

Grantaire pauses for a breath, and tries to drain the last drop out of the already empty glass in his hand. All eyes are on him, he can feel the journalist asshole’s disdain from here. He sweeps his gaze around the room, and lands finally on Enjolras. His look is unreadable. Not murderous, as Grantaire had expected, but displeased. Disappointed.

Of course, Grantaire thinks. This might as well be a scene from those few years ago—only last time, no one got him on tape. He needs out of this room right now. He holds his hands up, a surrender, as he stands.

No one tries to stop him as he slams out the same door as Eponine.  

 

—

 

It’s fucking cold in Northern California that night. Grantaire digs around the back of the van for a something, anything warm. The only thing he can find is Enjolras’s red hoodie. He must have left it one night as he was rushing back to his bus. Grantaire looks at it for a long moment, feeling like shit, but cold, but mostly like shit. Then he pulls it on anyway, and tries not to breathe in too deeply. Tries not to think about being wrapped up in Enjolras. Tries again. Fails.

He drinks alone till he falls asleep.

 

—

 

The morning is as foggy as Grantaire’s head. He drives inland from the coast, and up, and thinks about nothing at all.

Eponine texts him just as he pulls into the parking lot in Wheatland. _apparently i should lose my shit more often_ , it reads.

 _yeah?_ Grantaire sends back.

_marius and combeferre both brought me breakfast to apologize._

_for what? they didn’t do anything wrong._

_behold the power of male guilt_ , she texts with a smiley face. _i could get used to this._

Grantaire laughs to himself. _so whose offering did you accept?_

 _guess_.

He doesn’t have to.

In a moment, his phone buzzes again. _enjolras is looking for you_ , Eponine has sent.

Grantaire slumps forward against his steering wheel. He just wants to wallow for a minute, just one minute, before he has to go face whatever it is that Enjolras wants to say.

He gets 30 seconds before a knock on his window startles him. He jumps a mile in the seat, wrenching himself up from his slouch. It’s Enjolras and his perfect timing, standing awkwardly next to Grantaire’s door. His jackhammering heart doesn’t slow down a beat.

Enjolras steps out of the way as Grantaire opens the van door. He swings his legs to the side, but doesn’t actually get out.

“I have to get to stage soon,” Grantaire blurts.

Enjolras nods, once, teeth set to his bottom lip. “About that.” He stops. “Is that my hoodie?”

Grantaire fumbles for the zipper. He can’t get his fingers around it, but at this point he’s basically numb to any more panic. “I was going to bring it back to you,” he says, still tugging to try and get it off.

“It’s okay,” Enjolras says. “Keep it.”

Grantaire freezes.

“That’s not what I—” Enjolras frowns. “I came to tell you something else. Eponine and I—” He stops again. “I was thinking about what you said the other night. About your label, and your next record. And I talked to Eponine about it, and we agreed that you should try for something bigger. For a better deal. She pulled some strings, and we set up a thing for you.”

“You did what?” Grantaire can’t understand any of this.

“There’s an A&R guy I know in Minneapolis. He agreed to come hear you play when we’re in town. I should have told you earlier, but we weren’t sure it would happen.”

Grantaire huffs. “Great, I’m sure he’ll be incredibly impressed by my daytime show on the second stage.”

“Actually, that’s part of it. That’s where Eponine came in. She got you time on the mainstage.”

Grantaire can only stare at him.

Enjolras’s brow furrows. “This was before yesterday, so.”

“So, what?”

“You probably don’t—I mean, I can see how that might be weird for you. You probably won’t want to do it.”

“Wait, so you came to tell me about this and then take it away again?” Grantaire tugs on his hair. “That’s cold, Enjolras, even for you.”

“What? No. I wouldn’t do that.” Enjolras cocks his head. His mouth is a hard line. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Sure I won’t fuck it up royally? There’s a promise I can’t make. But I am capable of playing a show, even on the mainstage. It isn’t that hard.” Grantaire watches Enjolras watch him closely. “I can even pretend I’m not the unmitigated asshole I was yesterday.”

Enjolras’s mouth twists. “You were—outspoken. And exceptionally eloquent.”

“As opposed to?”

“Often when we speak, you seem at a loss.”

“I save it for the stage.” Grantaire shrugs. “Why waste what’s in short supply? Anyway, you’ve heard all my arguments before.”

“I hadn’t heard that one.”

Grantaire’s laugh is bitter, uncertain. “I can be cynical about more than just the industry. I would’ve thought you already knew.” He bites his lip. “I have to go play my set.”

Enjolras nods. “Think about the Minneapolis thing. We still have several days before we get there. You don’t have to say yes right now.”

“Oh, I’ll do it. How can I not?” He looks down at his hands, resting awkwardly in his lap. “I’d do—” Anything, Grantaire is about to hate himself for saying. But his phone buzzes before the word can form.

It’s a text from the assistant tour manager, demanding to know where he is. His set starts in 3 minutes.

“Shit,” he says as he scrambles out of the van. “I’m late. Again.”

Enjolras just stands aside.


	10. Portland / I-90 / Minneapolis

California is beautiful but big. Everything big. Big views, big trees, and a big, long drive all the way up to Portland that leaves Grantaire with a big, horrible headache and a sleep deficit the size of Mount Shasta. 

He pulls into the parking lot of the expo center or whatever it is around 5:00 am. He’s beat almost everyone, even the stage and sound crews who leave last and arrive first to set up the not inconsiderable amount of equipment needed to make the tour run smoothly and the bands sound good. 

The parking lot is weirdly empty when Grantaire crawls into the back of his van. He’s got hours yet before he’ll need to be awake and functioning, plenty of time to sleep off the drive and the weirdness of the last few days. Plenty of time to right himself.

He stares at the ceiling instead. 

The sun comes up, eventually, the way it always must, and Grantaire dozes for a little bit. But he keeps waking up, still in the van, still feeling low-grade terrible. He thinks back to Wheatland, to Enjolras and Eponine’s plan, and back beyond that, to Shoreline and the interview, and Enjolras’s disappointed face. 

The last time they’d toured together, when Grantaire would run his mouth too long, dig too hard into the parts of Enjolras that infuriated him—well. Enjolras’s anger was a sight to be seen. He was beautiful but terrible, savage in his rhetoric, awful in the nineteenth century meaning of the word—inspiring reverential wonder and fear.

This wasn’t that. 

This was something else. This was Enjolras riding out the tide of Grantaire’s nastiness, Enjolras offering something for Grantaire to do as penance. Maybe all the sex had mellowed him out, Grantaire thinks with a wildly inappropriate giggle. 

It’s 10:00 am when he realizes he never actually apologized. Saying sorry is what normal people do, he thinks. 

Right?

It’s noon before he’s convinced himself that an apology is the move to make—still slightly afraid of even reminding Enjolras that it happened. 

Then again, the last time he went to smooth things over, he’d ended up with Enjolras’s dick in his mouth. 

Maybe a blowjob would be better than an apology. 

 

—

 

Jehan lets him onto the Friends! bus and then lets himself off of it immediately, politely. Enjolras is in the back lounge—the couch has been put back into couch shape—and he’s alternating between strumming chords on an acoustic and jotting stuff down in a little black notebook. His phone and a bottle of water sit next to him.

Grantaire knocks at the door partition. “Hi?” he offers.

Enjolras makes that face like maybe he might smile, if he did that. “Hey,” he says, and goes back to writing.

“I came to say—” Grantaire begins. 

“Yeah?” Enjolras bites his pen, tests his finger placement on the guitar. He looks up again. “What?”

Grantaire’s heart pounds. “I—” He pauses again, wills his pulse to stop racing. “I— I’m definitely in,” he says. 

“In…?”

“For Minneapolis, I mean. In for the show. I’ll do it.” He takes a deep breath, exhales the thought of everything he didn’t just say.

Enjolras frowns. “Okay?” He sets his guitar to the side, presses a button to light up his phone screen.

Grantaire breathes in again and takes a couple of steps forward, lowering his eyes suggestively. “And I thought,” he says, “if you had time…”

He watches Enjolras’s mouth twitch. “I don’t,” he says, picking up his phone. “Sorry.”

“Oh. Um,” Grantaire says as he steps back. “Okay. I’m s—”

The phone in Enjolras’s hand starts ringing. “It’s a follow-up with that magazine,” he explains, swiping his thumb to answer. “Hello?”

Grantaire steps back more. He should leave, he should definitely leave. He bumps the partition wall behind him.

Enjolras moves the phone from his mouth. “Sorry, really. Find me in Seattle?” He brings the phone back. “Hey, sorry about that. No, no, we can do it now.”

“I can’t,” Grantaire hears himself whisper, but he’s backed too far away from Enjolras to hear.

 

—

 

He can’t find Enjolras in Seattle because he won’t be in Seattle. This leg of the tour, the drives are too long, and Grantaire does actually need to sleep at some point. What he would have told Enjolras, had Enjolras had time to listen, was that he was splitting off from the tour for a few days. He’ll play Portland—he’s on his way, in just a minute, to play Portland—and then get in the van and drive for two days, stop twice to sleep, and then meet the tour back in Minnesota.

Grantaire’s set is a daze, and he’s in the van and on his way before he has time to think. He puts the sun to his back and he pulls onto the interstate, and now.

Now he has time to think.

His first thought is that Oregon is gorgeous. It’s the lushest green as he skirts the Columbia River. It’s enough for a while. The green whizzes by, and Grantaire lets it.

His second thought comes unbidden a couple of hours later. He’s swinging north, entering Washington, when he realizes that back in Portland Enjolras will be taking the stage. Enjolras and Friends! will be standing in front of hundreds and hundreds of adoring faces, moshpit devotees and true believers, ironically bored teenagers and tagged-along boyfriends and all points in between. Enjolras will be standing on the stage where Grantaire stood, however many days ago that was now, and he’ll be singing to the same massive crowd that he wants Grantaire to sing to in two days time. 

The cities may change but it’s immaterial, really. A crowd is a crowd. 

Grantaire hadn’t been lying when he told Enjolras a mainstage show was not that hard to play. Enjolras did it every night. He’s doing it right now. 

The kids in the front will all have that look, faces tilted up towards the light. That look that Grantaire has felt himself wear in Enjolras’s presence more times than he can count. 

He drives through the show, through the encore and the applause and the afterparty. He stops for gas and coffee, wants something stronger, knows it’ll be at least another day before he can have it. The van is quiet-loud, the rush of wind and the sound of a misaligned belt whirring steadily. The road itself is quiet-quiet. It’s mostly empty, mostly black now that it’s night.

Grantaire keeps driving, thinking about Enjolras onstage and thinking about tipping his face up to Enjolras stretched over him, like soaking in sunlight even in the dark. 

The image clouds over, replaced by Enjolras’s disappointed, stormy brow. Grantaire pushes it away.

 

—

 

He picks up I-90 and pushes through Spokane, past the Washington state line, through the thin strip of Idaho almost all the way to Montana. Then he stops to sleep.

Sleep, wake, start again.

 

—

 

The interstate is endless and it’s all there is to do.

The whir of the belt becomes the beat of song, but Grantaire can’t stop to write it down. The road funnels him onward. 

Sometime overnight the green was replaced by the prairie’s gold. He sings Springsteen’s “Badlands” to himself as he drives. He taps the drumbeat on his steering wheel.

Grantaire wishes he could borrow the Jondrettes’ tour drummer for the set he’s promised to play in Minneapolis. He sees himself onstage, not as he was with Eponine and Cosette flanking him, but as he will be—centered behind a mic, alone, dwarfed by the monitors and the stacks, by the lighting rig that bathes every Friends! show blood red. 

He’s skirting Billings at the time he’d normally be taking the stage. The tiny second stage where he feels comfortable now, the mistakes of that first day on tour left far behind. The sad little stage where Enjolras had watched him and been unsatisfied enough to make a plan, to call in favors and draft reinforcements. To maneuver Grantaire around his own career like it mattered. 

Enjolras unsatisfied. The words echo to the swish-thump beat of the road. 

 

—

 

Grantaire has ignored three calls from his label by the time he crosses into North Dakota. It’s just passing 11:00 pm and he’s just passing Bismarck when he feels his exhaustion like a wall. He finds a rest stop and crawls into the back of the van to sleep. 

His brain can’t let go of the cycling rhythm he’s been hearing all day, and even as he drifts to sleep it spins around his mind. He reaches for his phone in the dark, thinking half-consciously that he’ll send Enjolras a quick text—only to realize he’s never gotten his number. What he and Enjolras do doesn’t require contact information.

He sees Enjolras on the bus in Portland, so clearly uninterested, priorities so obviously elsewhere. What he and Enjolras _did_ , Grantaire corrects himself.

What they did was about convenience. About boredom and finding fun where you can when your social circle is necessarily limited to 20 bands in the same caravan night after night. At least, Grantaire thinks, it must have been for Enjolras, and better that he comes to terms with it now. 

No need to relive what happened after the last tour.

No need, even, to ever let Enjolras know all the ways Grantaire has been feeling, surprised and terrified and thrilled and in—yeah. No need for that.

Grantaire only has one need, and it’s to get drunk as shit the second he parks his van in Minneapolis.

 

—

 

He’s got a full day of driving ahead of him before that can happen, though. A full day to think about his setlist, to worry about what to sing and what to say, and how to sell himself to an A&R guy who will surely not want him. 

A full day not to feel the sinking in his gut that tells him his crazy grace period is undoubtedly over. A full day not to wonder how the hell he will get through the next month of the tour with Enjolras off limits once again. A full day not to think about readjusting to an Enjolras-free existence. 

It’d be easier if the tour could just end now, Grantaire muses. But they still have a handful of midwestern dates and the entire northeast to play. 

Grantaire’s getting ahead of himself, he knows. First he’s got to get through Minnesota in one piece. 

 

—

 

Minneapolis is obliging. 

It’s still rush hour when Grantaire parks his van in a lot off Hennepin and sets off in search of the closest bar. Tomorrow they’ll play Canterbury Park, outside of town. 

Tonight, Grantaire drinks.

He doesn’t talk to anyone, and no one talks to him. He wouldn’t know what to say anyway, can’t imagine making small talk about the weather and the area, when he’ll just be somewhere else in a couple days’ time. 

Sometime before midnight, his phone lights up with a text from Eponine. _colorado is all white people. they’d love you here._

Grantaire smiles a little at the screen but he doesn’t know what to say back. After several minutes, the phone lights up again, a rapid succession of messages pinging one after the other.

_that’s my way of saying i miss you_

_in case you couldn’t tell_

_xoxo fucker_

Sometime after that, Grantaire stumbles back to the van and passes out face down in the back.

 

—

 

Performer parking is filling up when Grantaire pulls in the next day, squinting behind his sunglasses. He’s hungover as fuck.

He soundchecks on the mainstage through the pain. Then he steals some aspirin from the Jondrettes’ bus, washes it down with some of Eponine’s vodka, and hides in the back lounge, writing and rewriting his set list. 

Grantaire’s gotten a good way through the bottle and then a nap when Eponine and Cosette come crashing in a couple hours later. He startles and sits up hazily.

“…moment when Musichetta bared her teeth at that guy, I really thought she might rip his throat out,” Cosette is saying.

“Thank god for Bahorel, right?” Eponine replies with a laugh.

Grantaire rubs his eyes with the heel of his palm. 

“Hey stranger,” Eponine says. “It’s just about time. You ready?”

Grantaire doesn’t know what he is. “Always,” he answers anyway.

Eponine slides the bottle of vodka out of his hand and clucks her tongue. “You owe me a replacement,” she says as she sets it aside.

He braces for a further reprisal, a lecture about this kind of thing, but then remembers this is Eponine. She brushes right past the moment and continues on.

It’s a rush to the stage with both girls chattering away about the night before, or maybe the night before that, or maybe something that happened years ago. Grantaire can’t keep up. He’s fitted with an in-ear monitor by a tech he’s never seen, who tugs and fusses at the red hoodie Grantaire’s still got on, and then makes him wait in an area off to the side while everyone else wanders to and fro easily. 

His breath stutters out when he sees Enjolras across the way, standing on the other side of the stage and chatting with what must be the A&R guy. The guy is older, portly, with a mustache and a slightly sour air. Enjolras looks young and otherworldly next to him. Grantaire feels winded by his beauty, cast into such stark relief, and his thoughts spin painfully through the past few weeks.

Then a tech nods and pushes him out towards the stage. For a moment, Grantaire feels Enjolras’s eyes on him, and then the eyes of the hundreds of kids in the crowd.

Grantaire’s heart is wild.

It thumps and strains against his deep breath and the start of his set. He opens with “Impossible” but feels at a loss for witty words, so he segues straight into “A Rover/A Gambler.” The crowd claps along dutifully, but it’s different tonight. The sound echoes and drags, like it takes half a beat to reach from the lawn to the stage.

Grantaire feels just slightly out of sync.

He doesn’t think it’s the alcohol—he’s played shows drunker than this and felt fine about them, even if it did make everyone else twitchy. But his fingers feel thick and heavy, ripping strings he should be plucking, losing their way, tripping over each other. He feels a string nearly give and snap and so he pulls back, tries to play it softer. 

The crowd blinks up at him.

Less guitar means he can hear his own voice better. Grantaire becomes painfully aware of its roughness, the vodka and the bourbon from the night before combining like a ghostly burn. Like a brand he can feel and he knows everyone else can hear.

Between songs, Grantaire pauses. “Thanks. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening, or pretending to listen, or texting or whatever it is you’re out there doing. I just, um, I just drove here. From Portland. Have you ever driven all the way across Montana and, what’s that other state? You know which one I mean? Anyway, there’s fucking nothing out there. Who dreamed up the interstate? The fastest way from place to place and the fastest road to alienation and despair. You can’t do anything while driving. You can’t read, you can’t write, you can’t fuck, you can’t drink. What’s the point? What a horror it is, driving ourselves aimlessly around this giant slab of land, driving ourselves mad, getting used to it all the while.” Grantaire breaks off in a fit of coughing. 

Someone in the crowd yells something he can’t make out. Other people laugh.

“Right, sorry,” he says with a grimace. He looks around for a bottle of water, but there aren’t any on stage. “Anyway, um. This song is called ‘Irma Says.’ It’s got nothing to do with any of that.” He starts the song, stumbling over the opening chords, but keeping on anyway.

He loses his breath halfway through and barely chokes out the remaining verses. He wants to flee but he’s pinned in place by the hundreds of blank faces watching him, pinned again by the two sets of eyes fixed on him from the side of the stage. 

The burn of his throat only gets worse. Grantaire limps through “Nothing Whole,” voice cracking where it should be strong, and decides to give up on the last three songs of his set. Better to cut and run now, he thinks, before it gets any worse. 

“Thanks,” he mumbles to the crowd. “Sorry, thanks.” They applaud half-heartedly as he leaves the stage.

Grantaire heads straight for Enjolras and the A&R guy, grinning forcibly against the snag in his throat and the burn behind his eyes. 

Enjolras, frowning, makes the introductions. “Grantaire, this is my good friend Lou. Lou, Grantaire.” 

Lou reaches out to shake Grantaire’s hand with thick fingers. “Good set,” he says.

“It’s not usually that rough,” Grantaire says. He stuffs his hands back in the hoodie’s pockets.

Lou nods. “We’ve all been there. Shrug it off, the night is young.” 

“If you’ll excuse me,” Enjolras says stiffly. “We’re on next.”

Lou claps him jovially on the shoulder. “Great to see you, kid.”

Grantaire leans in to Enjolras. “Relax,” he whispers. 

Enjolras just walks away.

“So,” Lou says gruffly to Grantaire. “What kind of trouble should we get into?”

Grantaire huffs an awkward laugh. “You’d know better than me what’s around here.”

“Right you are,” Lou nods. “Did you know there’s a casino next door?”

“There is?”

“Only tables, no slots.” Lou gives Grantaire a long look, like he’s sizing him up. “Still. Let me buy you a drink.”

Grantaire can smile genuinely at that. “Okay,” he says. “I will.”

There really is a casino next door. During the day there are horse races, but now it’s just poker and a handful of other table games. Lou plunks down a credit card that sounds like metal, not plastic, hitting the top of the bar. “Top shelf only tonight,” he tells the bartender with a wink. 

Grantaire thinks he could get used to deals done like this. 

A drink and a round of blackjack become several drinks and an ill-advised run of baccarat bets, but Lou keeps laughing, keeps paying the tab. Grantaire takes every drink offered.

He doesn’t know when Lou will turn the conversation to the actual matter at hand, so he just keeps betting, letting himself be dealt into the next round, and the next. Anyway, he’s not really looking forward to explaining his awful set, nor the reason he’d had to take this meeting in the first place. He can wait.

“It's your turn, sir,” the blackjack dealer tells him. 

Grantaire shakes his head. “I’ve made an enormous mistake.”

Lou laughs from behind his shoulder. “You’re doing well.”

“Fifteen,” the dealer says.

“Hit.”

“Twenty-two.”

“Damn.”

The hand is a bust but the night is a success, Grantaire tells himself. Lou gives him a shoulder-clap goodbye on the far side of 2:00 am, and Grantaire climbs into his van to sleep off the incredibly good booze. He doesn’t think about how they never talked business, and he doesn’t think about Enjolras either.


	11. Omaha

For a minute, Grantaire can’t tell the pounding in his head from the pounding on the back door of the van. 

He squints and rolls, still twisted up in the clothes he wore the night before. The sickly throb of his hangover crashes over him like a wave. Memories of the night lap at the shore just behind the pain: the botched mainstage set, Enjolras’s worried face, the free-flowing drinks, the gambling, the feeling of a deal sealed even without words spoken. 

The banging starts again.

Grantaire throws the back door of the van open to find it must be much later than he thought. The sun is high and bright. The air is hot. 

Enjolras is hotter, standing with his fist raised to bang again.

“Shit,” Grantaire says. “Did I miss my set or something? No, can’t be that, they wouldn’t send you.” He rubs his face with both hands. “Did Lou send you? Do I have a contract already? You could have waited until a decent hour.”

Enjolras lowers his hand.

“At least answer one of those questions,” Grantaire says. “You just standing there is freaking me out.”

Enjolras closes his eyes briefly. “There’s no set to miss, we’re off until Omaha tomorrow. And 2 pm _is_ a decent hour for those of us who weren’t out drinking and throwing away opportunities all night.”

Grantaire blinks. “What?”

“What ‘what’? I know you know our tour schedule, for all that you act like you’re just stumbling your way from show to show. So what could you possibly be confused about?” Enjolras’s nostrils flare. His voice cuts like the sunlight right into Grantaire’s headache. “The part where you threw a favor back in my face? If you didn’t want to do it, you should have just said.” 

Grantaire steps out of the van, takes a minute to find his footing. “Sorry,” he says, “I’m still not following.” His hands twitch to reach for Enjolras. He would smooth a palm against his side, but Enjolras’s body language warns him off. 

“The thing I can’t figure out,” Enjolras continues like he’s actually making sense, “is if you failed that badly on purpose, just to fuck with me. I know you love to make your point about selling out as dramatically as possible.” 

“Wait, no,” Grantaire stutters. The point of Enjolras’s anger is dawning on him, suddenly, terribly. “I know I fucked up my set but I— I thought—” He reaches for the van door, an anchor point. “There were drinks. It was fine. We laughed, he bought me into blackjack. It was going to be fine.”

Enjolras snorts. He digs his phone out of his back pocket, swipes his thumb across the screen, and brandishes it at Grantaire. 

The screen shows an email.

_E—_

_Enjoyed seeing you as always. Shame about your friend. He’s got something, you’re right, but I can’t back a horse that doesn’t finish the race._

_—L_

Grantaire feels the burn of last night’s alcohol coming up the wrong way. 

He will not puke here. He will not. He closes his eyes against the wave, before remembering he’s still got a vice grip on Enjolras’s phone.

He holds it out weakly. Enjolras, still radiating anger, takes it back with a careful hand, sure not to brush their fingers together. 

Grantaire feels his throat clench.

“Well?” Enjolras is saying. “No pithy comeback? No lecture for me on the futility of whatever it is you’re taking issue with today? You were at your worst last night, but I remember those days on tour when you couldn’t back down. Let me hear you at your best.”

Grantaire wants to shrink back into his van and disappear forever. “Is that what you came here for?” he asks.

“I thought you must have had a reason,” Enjolras spits back. “To say one thing and then act so completely opposite. And after we— Well.” 

Grantaire casts around his gut for the burn of anger, but it’s not there. He’s got nothing but a sinking feeling, a cold sweeping through him in all directions, washing his sick stomach and his unsteady hands. “Look, I—” The rasp of his throat makes him stop, cough, start again. “I know we’re not fucking anymore, but I - I really did try.” 

Enjolras furrows that harsh brow. “We’re not— what?”

Grantaire looks to the ground. He shrugs.

Enjolras sighs. “Okay, if you want. That’s probably better anyway.” He sets his jaw. “It was a mistake, clearly, to think you’d ever change.” He lets out half a harsh laugh, mirthless. “To think that you cared enough to.”

Grantaire’s head snaps back up. “I—” He bites his own tongue on the words. Takes a deep breath. Holds it in.

“You what?”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire says. “Please.” He puts a hand up. “Please don’t, I can’t, I…” He trails off helplessly. “I can’t.”

A door slams in the distance. Enjolras blinks. “Try a full sentence.”

“Please don’t make me say this.”

Enjolras’s face is a stony mask, and Grantaire feels a spark, the anger he wanted, small and pathetic but there nonetheless.

“Jesus,” he says. “I cared. I care. Does that feed your ego the way you want? Everything up to your standard and yet another worshipful subject to fall at your feet.” He takes a deep breath. “Sorry I can’t apostle the way you demand. My devotion is a baser thing. I knew you’d tire of being profaned eventually. There’s a Sword of Damocles joke to be made here but it’s vulgar beyond belief. I’d have made it on the last tour, so how’s that for change? I’d have repelled you on purpose. But I must be getting soft, if even my worst behavior can’t keep you away. I’ll try harder.” 

“If you gave even a fifth of that passion—”

“I’d burn myself out in your wake. Again.”

Enjolras freezes.

Grantaire is a spitting thing now. He can’t stop. “Don’t look so surprised. Isn’t _this_ the me you wanted today? Verbosity is my favorite screen but even I can’t make it eloquent for you, what you did to me back then.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I misspeak. What I did to myself.”

Enjolras has the gall to look confused. “What did you do?”

“Nothing special. What all ruined people do. Heartbreak is so pedestrian, don’t you think?”

Enjolras frowns deeply. “Grantaire—”

“I don’t need your pity, Enjolras. I need you to leave me the fuck alone.” He takes a step backwards, towards the van, retreating with his hackles still raised high.

Enjolras’s hands come up in frustrated surrender. “Fine.” He turns away.

Grantaire watches the tense line of Enjolras’s shoulders receding into the distance. 

 

—

 

The farmland is an ocean he would rather drown himself in. Grantaire drives with his jaw set, his mind replaying last night and this morning in a continuous loop. He wishes each time that it would change, that something would happen differently. It never does.

In Omaha he buys a fifth of cheap bourbon and drinks until he pukes.

However many hours later, the sun is up and Grantaire is squinting out at the second stage again, guitar clenched in his sweaty hand. A tech thumps him companionably on the shoulder. “Back among mere mortals, eh?” the guy asks.

Grantaire blinks. “If you only knew.”

The tech laughs. Grantaire doesn’t. He walks out onstage to a bored smattering of applause.

He gets through the whole set. He doesn’t really know how.

Grantaire hurries back toward his van afterward—every walk through performer parking is a minefield—but Enjolras is nowhere to be seen. Instead, he finds Joly sitting outside the Rosas’ bus, looking peaky. The rest of the lawn chairs are empty.

Joly holds out a lime margarita in a can. Grantaire takes it wordlessly. He bends his fingernail painfully cracking it open, shakes off the pain, takes a long gulp.

“Ugh.”

“I dow,” Joly says. “But at least it’s bitamid C.”

“You sound bad.”

“I feel worse.” Joly wipes his hand across his nose. “I’b afraid I’ll get everyode else sick too.”

Grantaire clinks his terrible margarita against Joly’s. “I guess we better stay out here then.”

They drink in silence until Bossuet throws open the bus door and clomps over to a chair. 

“Chetta and Feuilly are fighting over arrangements again,” he pronounces. Joly pats him sympathetically on the hand. “Mind if I take shelter with you two?”

Grantaire leans his head back and closes his eyes. “Please,” he says. “Distract us from our misery.”

Eponine’s voice sounds from behind him. “Who’s miserable?”

“Who isd’t?” Joly shrugs. 

“You all look goddamn terrible,” she says fondly. 

“Then you’ll fit right in,” Grantaire answers.

“Fucker.” She drops her full weight into his lap. “God, you’re bony.” 

“Children,” Bossuet says warningly. He hands Eponine a drink. “Let’s think happier thoughts.”

“Like what?”

“Have you heard that Barius is in lub?”

Eponine’s face could kill Joly on the spot.

Grantaire pokes his head out from behind her. “That’s not happier,” he says gently.

Bossuet clears his throat. “Let’s try again. Tell us what you miss most about home.”

Eponine snorts. “That’s happier?”

“It’s the seventh-inning stretch. We’re close, my dears, we’re close.”

“Fair enough,” she says. “I miss my bed. And my closet. My whole room, really.” 

“I miss your couch,” Grantaire offers. 

“You miss passing out drunk on it.”

“Exactly.”

Bossuet smiles warmly. “I miss our shower,” he says.

“I biss your cookidg,” Joly responds.

“Really?” He leans forward and hauls Joly in for a kiss.

“By cold—” Joly yelps.

“I don’t care about your cold,” Bossuet says into his mouth, before sealing their lips together sweetly.

Eponine turns to Grantaire. He focuses on her face, close up like it is, in an effort to give the other two their privacy. 

“Alone together again, huh?” he says.

She nods a little. “Are you okay?”

“No. Are you?”

Eponine shrugs. “You heard him, Marius is in lub.” Her teeth press into her bottom lip. “I saw them together.”

“Oh, shit, honey.” Grantaire wraps his arm around her as best as he can. 

Her next breath is shaky. “It’s okay. We all knew it would happen sooner or later.”

“You know she’d still take a bullet for you,” Grantaire says quietly. “They both would.”

“Yeah, well, I’d never want them to,” Ep says. “I just want them to be happy.”

“And what about—”

“That’s over. It would never- I’m too much of a mess. And he’s too…”

“Nice?” Grantaire offers.

“An honest-to-god gentleman.” Eponine’s hand fiddles with the tab of her can. “Who has time for that? He never even kissed me goodnight.” 

Grantaire laughs. “Well, after the first time, who can blame him?”

Eponine punches his arm, hard enough to hurt, but she’s laughing too. 

The sun dips low enough to hide behind the mainstage tent, a hulking mass on the not-so-distant horizon. Grantaire becomes aware of birdsong, faintly, and the sounds of Bossuet and Joly talking quietly much closer.

Eponine leans back into Grantaire. “Just a couple more weeks,” she says. “I have to go play soon, but, well. Let me know when you’re ready to talk about it.”

Grantaire presses his face into her shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut briefly.

Ep puts a comforting hand on his head. “But if you relapse on me again,” she says in a concerned whisper, “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Grantaire can just manage a laugh. He pulls back to answer, but Bahorel’s booming voice cuts him off.

“Mind if I sit for a minute?” Bahorel asks. 

Joly gasps through his teeth just as Grantaire sees Bahorel’s usually-sturdy frame, outside the circle of their seats, swaying slightly. His face splits into a grin, shifting the mess of bandages running from cheek to brow. A vivid red line peeks out from underneath one end, flanked by tiny dots that indicate fresh stitches.

“Shit, man,” Bossuet says. “A drink for the wounded.”

Bahorel takes the proffered can and lowers himself into the chair Joly just vacated. “Thanks. Sorry, painkillers are making me a little fuzzy.” 

Joly flits around him, face clearly worried. “Then you shouldn’t drink this,” he says, taking the unopened can back. “I’ll get you some water.” 

“What happened?” Bossuet asks.

Bahorel touches his face gingerly. “Oh, this? Some misguided youth in the pit brought his brass knuckles out to play.”

“Fuck,” Eponine says.

“You alright?” Grantaire asks.

Bahorel grins again, then winces in pain. “I’ve had worse. Remind me to tell you about Tampa someday.”

“A crowd is a dangerous thing,” Bossuet says wisely.

“So is a girl who can reopen your stitches with her thighs,” Bahorel replies. He chugs his water, then lets Joly turn his face up for a better look.

“You’re lucky he didn’t break your orbital bone,” Joly says. 

“He’s lucky I didn’t break all his ribs.” Bahorel grimaces as Joly prods the end of his cut. “Fourteen fucking stitches, and probably 6 months in juvie for that kid. I love a fight as much as the next guy, but damn, that’s just idiotic.”

“And this is why I hate it when Gav does stupid shit like this,” Eponine says. 

“Gav would never break someone’s face open like that,” Grantaire interjects.

“No, but he’s dumb enough to play hero and get hurt.” Her phone chimes, and she clambers off Grantaire’s lap. “Speaking of,” she announces. “That’s my call.”

Bahorel smiles until his bandages crinkle. “Try not to incite any riots in the crowd tonight.”

Eponine ruffles his mohawk. “Not until you’re back on the job.”

Grantaire raises his drink to her in salute. He feels the empty space where she rested on his knees, the empty space hollowing back out in his chest. 

Ep leans down. “Seventh-inning stretch,” she whispers in his ear before slipping away.


	12. Where ever / Whatever

June limps into July and Grantaire limps his way through their midwestern dates. 

He and Eponine take to hiding out in his van, or on top of it when the air gets too stuffy, drinking and talking some, but mostly just being with each other. They can’t pretend they’re back in New York, not really, but they can pretend it’s just the two of them, no crushes in sight, no bad decisions in their past repertoire. For a few hours a day, at least, they can pretend that.

Eponine knows Grantaire well enough to know when to put a drink in his hand and when to take one away. She knows him well enough to wait, too, until he’s ready to explain what happened between him and Enjolras.

“There’s nothing more untouchable than the flesh of an ex-lover,” she says with a sigh.

“Except maybe the flesh of the lover you never got to have,” he responds with a wry smile.

“You know I’ll still love you even without a record deal, right?”

Grantaire snorts. “If only Enjolras had felt— well.” He takes a long drink of the gin and tonic she mixed him. “Better not finish any of that thought.”

He knows Eponine well enough to shut up when she needs quiet and talk endlessly when she needs a distraction. Knows her well enough not to push her about Combeferre, nor Cosette. 

They play Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit. They take to waiting for each other side stage. Eponine smiles kindly when Grantaire catches her eye in the middle of a song. Grantaire intervenes the night Eponine decks some shitty band dude who calls “Nice ass!” as she makes her way offstage. She takes the guy down with one vicious right hook. Grantaire wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her away, legs kicking with fury, before she can beat him bloody.

They hide out so effectively that they’re both actually surprised when Musichetta comes to find them on the next day off. 

“Can I join the cool kids table?” she calls up to them.

“Sure, if you can find it,” Grantaire calls back from the roof of the van, looking around in mock confusion.

Musichetta laughs purely, simply, scrambling up the hood and taking a seat on the blanket next to them. Walt Whitman stares at them from her tank top. His eyes are kind, just like hers.

“We miss you amongst our band of roving troubadours,” she tells them. Then she leans back on her hands, trains her eyes on the treeline in the distance. “But what a view.”

“We’d call it the Eagle’s Nest, but Bossuet’s not yet touched down to rest his feathers with us,” Grantaire jokes.

“Do they even have eagles here?” Eponine asks.

“I can’t remember,” he says. “Where are we again?”

Musichetta looks down at her shirt. “‘America,’” she says. “‘Centre of equal daughters, equal sons.’”

“‘America,’” Grantaire returns. “‘I do not vaunt my love for you. I have what I have.’” 

Musichetta’s smile blinds. “I knew you were a good one,” she says. She pokes Eponine with her toe. “Bring him to movie night. It’ll be good for you both.”

“Movie night?”

“Tonight. Our bus, our tv, Feuilly’s extensive film folder, our air conditioning. Drinks if you want. Cuddles if you ask nicely.”

Eponine shakes her head. “We aren’t really doing social right now.”

Grantaire watches Musichetta’s mouth turn into a lovely pout—how can anyone withstand her, he wonders—as she says, “Please? For me?”

Eponine’s eyes narrow. “Will our newly-minted lovebirds be there?” she asks, vicious sarcasm dripping.

“Marius and Cosette,” Grantaire adds at Musichetta’s look. “We’ve barely seen them, but I can imagine. They must make a twee pair of lovers. Heart emoticons in every text. Watching the movie reflected in each other’s eyes. Hands grasping tight in their own little world. Awash on a sea of insufferable affection.”

Eponine laughs cruelly. 

“You can’t hide out forever,” Musichetta points out, “and besides, if that’s your objection, I’ll wedge you in between me and Bossuet and we’ll insulate you from the distasteful.”

Grantaire and Eponine share a look.

“You too,” Musichetta tells him. She pouts again, and Grantaire knows it’s hopeless to resist.

 

—

 

Courfeyrac rounds the corner of the Rosas’ bus just in time to catch them. “Lovelies!” he says by way of greeting. He highfives Eponine with a grin, spins and pulls Grantaire into a bear hug.

How can a tiny elfin boy envelope a person like this, Grantaire wonders dimly as Eponine makes a face and slips onto the bus. Grantaire tries to shake his head at her, panicked, but Courf only holds him tighter. He’s warm but not sweaty, a comforting steadiness, and Grantaire feels himself relax in spite of everything.

Finally, Courf pulls back. He keeps his hands on Grantaire’s shoulders, and they eye each other.

“Been worried about you,” he says softly.

Grantaire drops his eyes.

“He has been too, you know.”

Grantaire can’t help his derisive snort. “I’m not gonna have this conversation with you.”

“Then will you have it with him?”

“Ha.”

Courf smiles like he’s unfazed. “Tell him I made you if you have to.”

Grantaire kicks the dirt of whatever shithole fairground parking lot they’re in today. “That’ll go over well,” he says. “Do you know he thought I fucked you?”

“He’s such a prude,” Courf says with a roll of his eyes. “Do you want to?”

“No,” Grantaire answers. “Thanks, but no.”

Courf claps him on the shoulder. “Good.”

And without another word, he tugs Grantaire into the bus and settles them in together, amongst the back lounge crowd.

They’re all piled on the giant bed where 3/4s of the Rosas usually sleep. Musichetta has made good on her promise to protect Eponine with snuggling, even though Marius and Cosette haven’t shown up after all. Joly hangs back, though, because judging from the tissue fort around him, he’s still sick. Bahorel is there, with his bandages off and his face looking all the more mangled for it. Combeferre leans against the bed from his spot on the floor, and Grantaire notices that Eponine has her eyes trained resolutely on the black tv screen, not on his back. 

Grantaire leans back against the headboard, in the spot Courf made for him, and does the same—focuses on the empty screen, and the motion of Feuilly getting wires plugged in and everything ready. Fixates on it, really, pretending that he can’t see Combeferre’s broad shoulders out of the corner of his eye, pretending that they’re not just inches from Enjolras’s slimmer frame, his neck and his bright blond hair, curling messily over his freshly shaved undercut. 

Feuilly blessedly presses play and the opening credits of _Blade Runner_ fills the tv screen. It gives Grantaire something to focus on for real, even though he’s seen it a few times already.

Courf is still warm and Rutger Hauer is still hot, and everyone is still, well, still in the blissfully cool air conditioning, and by the time Sean Young starts to play the piano, Grantaire has sunk into a soft sleep.

 

—

 

He wakes up with his face pressed into a pillow and his body curled into the still-upright figure of Courfeyrac beside him. Courf is warmer now, if possible, or maybe Grantaire has just gotten hot in his sleep. He shifts a little, feeling the places where his body makes contact with the bed, with another body. The movie is still playing, so he hasn’t been out for that long. But judging by the soundtrack, they’re right at the end, which means he missed the whole last half.

Grantaire blinks into the pillow. He turns his head, eyes taking in the waist of the person he’s been cuddled up to, the back, the curling blond hair.

Shit.

_Shit._

Grantaire yanks himself away as fast as he can, rolling and nearly falling right off the bed. Someone reaches a hand out to steady him—not Enjolras, he thinks, please don’t be Enjolras. 

“You okay?” Feuilly asks.

“Yeah,” Grantaire says with a shake of his head. “Yes. Fuck. Why does everyone keep asking me that?” It comes out meaner than he means it, and Feuilly recoils noticeably. 

Grantaire wants to run but he doesn’t want to make a scene. He doesn’t want everyone to think he’s the fragile fucking wreck they all fear he is. Eponine is watching him with that look she gets, her eyes softer than ever. Everyone else is still engrossed in the film, or pretending they are, including Enjolras. Enjolras, who hasn’t even moved, who’s still sitting in the middle of the bed, motionless as a painted statue.

Grantaire leans back against the headboard gingerly. There isn’t enough space in the world between him and Enjolras. He can feel the heat coming off him, or he thinks he can. He hates this.

He trains his gaze on Rutger Hauer’s face. He hates the end of this movie.

Enjolras turns his head a fraction of inch and says quietly, “Sorry, the floor got uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Grantaire nods. He hates everything.

Especially that curl of desire in his gut.

 

—

 

For the Fourth of July, the organizers have rearranged the schedule and moved everyone’s set up a few hours, so they can be done in time for the local fireworks display. It’s kind of brilliant, really, and it was probably Valjean’s idea. But it also means that Grantaire’s done for the day incredibly early, left aimless and unwilling, after movie night, to wander anywhere near the rest of the bus village.

He hauls a blanket, snacks, a six-pack of Thirsty Dog, and his songwriting guitar up to the roof of the van. He hasn’t spoken to his label in days, maybe more than a week, but Grantaire still guesses he should try to write. If he can get through this tour with one song—one song he doesn’t have to throw away—then the summer will have been, well. Not a success, but not a total fucking waste either.

He writes a verse about Musichetta’s wolf smile, then wonders vaguely when all his friends became animal metaphors.

He moves from aimless finger picking to half-unconscious strumming, just nonsense notes, to that gut punch realization that he’s playing something old. Something of his own that he kind of swore he wouldn’t play again. He sighs into the pull of the notes, and loops the intro a couple times while trying to remember the lyrics. 

“There’s more than one way to bring down an empire,” he sings softly, half-ashamed for doing it aloud. He pauses. The rest of the verse doesn’t come to him.

And just then, of course, of fucking course, Enjolras walks by.

Grantaire freezes like a squirrel, like a deer, like a T. Rex’s prey. If I just don’t move, he thinks. If I just don’t open my mouth.

He opens his mouth.

“Lovely day for patriotism, don’t you think?” he calls, pitching his sarcasm low enough to be ambiguous.

Enjolras stops, turns, looks up to the roof of the van.

“Only if it’s a celebration of the people, and not the state,” he says back.

“How about a celebration of explosions?”

Enjolras laughs just a little. “That’ll do,” he says.

Grantaire ducks his head, busies his fingers on his guitar.

“Am I interrupting you?” Enjolras asks.

Grantaire shrugs around his instrument. “Not really.”

“I—” Enjolras begins. He rests his hand on the side of the van. His neck cranes up into the twilight. “Can we talk? Like, actually talk, not call to each other from six feet apart?”

Grantaire takes a breath. He can’t find words, not one single word, so he gestures instead—an expansive sweep of his arm that could mean join me, or could mean anything else.

Enjolras takes it for what it is. He pulls himself up onto the roof with what seems like no effort, takes a seat at the most respectable distance from Grantaire that the tiny roof will allow.

“I really am sorry about the other day,” he says.

Grantaire feels his heart in his chest. He can’t say what he wants, which is for Enjolras to go the fuck away, and also for Enjolras to stay just there, silhouetted against the darkening sky, forever. He can’t say what he did, either, can’t admit that he went back to his van and got hard, immediately, thinking about Enjolras’s warm skin, and got himself off, and then kept thinking about Enjolras’s skin until he could fall asleep.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Enjolras is saying now. 

“You didn’t,” Grantaire responds, because he has to say something. “I… made myself uncomfortable.” He stares at his own knees, the wrinkled blanket he’s sitting on. “I made myself miserable,” he mumbles.

Enjolras has no response to that. He glances around, at everything but Grantaire. His eyes land on the three empty beer bottles lined up.

“How’s your drinking?” he says abruptly.

“It’s excellent, thank you. Enjoyable as always. Perhaps the best thing in my life right now.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know. It’s also not any of your concern.”

Enjolras frowns. “I can still be concerned for your wellbeing, you know. Even though we aren’t. Whatever. Anymore.”

“Oh, because we’re, what, friends now?”

“Now?”

Grantaire levels him a dry look.

“You mean we weren’t before,” Enjolras says slowly.

“Have you hit your head or something? Are you forgetting every other single interaction we’ve ever had?” 

Enjolras just stares.

“Fucking doesn’t make us friends,” Grantaire continues. “Nor does anything that came before that.” He shakes his head. “Only you would mistake a crush for awkward attempts at camaraderie. You know, that tour, whatever, I couldn’t have come closer to pulling your pigtails if you actually had pigtails. Which you shouldn’t, by the way. Don’t grow pigtails. The undercut is too hot to change.”

“And then what happened?” Enjolras asks.

“With your… pigtails?”

“Don’t be willfully obtuse. After the tour. After your— What happened?”

Grantaire close his eyes. “I’ve already said, it’s not worth talking about.”

“That’s not what Eponine told me,” Enjolras answers, like a dare.

How dare he. How dare she, Grantaire thinks. “Oh?” he says, with feigned casualness. “What did she tell you?”

Enjolras flexes his hands. “She wouldn’t say. Said I should ask you.”

Now Grantaire has to laugh. It’s mirthless. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, and now his voice is soft, very nearly tender. “What happened?”

The question hangs in the airs, heavy, and then it explodes.

No, that’s the fireworks display, Grantaire corrects himself.

He points at the sky. “Rockets’ red glare,” he says.

Enjolras watches him for a long moment. Then he silently shifts, turns himself to see the colored fire above the treeline. 

It brings him closer to Grantaire, who swears, again, that he can feel the nearness of Enjolras’s skin. He wants to touch it. He wants to reach out.

He can’t.

The fireworks are beautiful, in their way—the slowly-falling fiery gunpowder, the violent, earthshaking booms that follow. Grantaire hates bombs but he understands this, he thinks.

They watch in silence.

There’s a break, and then grand finale begins, one firework coming right on the heels of another, over and over and over. Grantaire can’t look away, can’t look at Enjolras so close to him. His heart feels like the sound of each detonation. 

And then it’s over.

It’s quiet.

Grantaire breathes out shakily and leans back until he can lie down on the roof. 

Enjolras, to his surprise, shifts and leans and lies back as well. He moves until he’s lying next to Grantaire. 

The quiet holds.

Grantaire feels something brush his fingers. He looks down between their bodies and can hardly believe his eyes. Enjolras has reached out to hold his hand.

A minute passes. Two. The crickets or whatever start chirping again. Grantaire looks up.

Enjolras is looking at him. Enjolras is staring, actually, an unreadable expression on his face. He bites his lip, follows his teeth with his tongue.

The air between them stretches and then pulls. Grantaire feels reeled in. He feels like time has slowed down, or some shit, like his next breath could take an eternity. He feels like—

He rounds his shoulders and pushes himself back up to sitting. “Um,” he says. 

Enjolras follows, not touching Grantaire, but close. Too close.

Grantaire wants to bolt. He can’t. It’s his damn van.

Instead, he starts talking.

“There was an album,” he says. “After the last tour. We talked about it. Do you remember?”

“Yeah,” Enjolras answers. 

“It was… There’s no good way to say this. It was about you. Or, how I felt about you. My stupid crush.”

There’s a pause. “But you didn’t finish it?” Enjolras asks.

Grantaire shakes his head. “No. I _couldn’t_ finish it. It wasn’t a good time, for me, I mean. I wasn’t happy with any of it. I wasted too much time in the studio and. Then.” He takes a deep breath, another. “I couldn’t finish it because I had to go to rehab.”

Enjolras is painfully quiet.

Grantaire runs a hand through his hair, ends up resting his hand on his chin. “I’m fine, now, you know, I’m fine. And I know Eponine is worried about me but. I never want to end up like that again. So. I won’t.” He shrugs, like it’s simple. 

Still nothing from Enjolras. 

“I know how fucking pathetic this sounds. But it’s not like… I mean.” Grantaire rubs his hand over his eyes. “It’s not like it happened because of you.”

“I didn’t think it did,” Enjolras says quietly.

“Anyway,” Grantaire continues. “It’s my shit and I have to deal with it. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.” He turns back to look at Enjolras, whose gaze is steady and not unkind. 

“Well,” Enjolras says. “I’m glad you did.”

 


	13. Burgettstown / Scranton

Grantaire only has one wish this morning, and it’s that the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line would open into a portal that could swallow him whole. He doesn’t even care where said portal would take him—New York, the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, hell. Christ, it could take him back in time to Atlanta and he’d gladly avoid ever setting foot on Enjolras’s bus, ever ending up in the ridiculous situation he’s somehow driven himself right into.

You can’t even see the state line. Nevertheless, the road takes him straight to Pennsylvania.

Okay, he tells the trees on the side of I-70, so that’s a lie. He’d never take back the chance to feel Enjolras’s hot skin under his hands, on his tongue, inside him. He’d never trade away the knowledge that Enjolras’s face goes soft just as he comes, that his lips part like he just can’t help himself. Grantaire wouldn’t trade that for avoiding all the embarrassment in the world. That’s Grantaire’s now, and he means to hold onto it forever, embarrassment be damned.

And that’s what last night had been, Grantaire thinks with a sigh as the road signs rush past. Embarrassing as fuck. Not just the confession, though that was bad enough. Grantaire’s pretty sure he drove a permanent wedge between them, admitting to the album full of love songs and the rehab and all of it. There was no way they could approach anything like equals now, even if Enjolras didn’t pity him. 

Grantaire snorts to himself as he changes lanes. _Anything_. What would that even mean? Friendship? Fucking? A—he bites his lip—a relationship?

Doesn’t matter. Moot point. Waste of time wondering about. 

Because even if Enjolras’s eyes had been kind last night, even if he didn’t seem to look as though he pitied Grantaire, he’d still fled as soon as he could. His phone had lit up with a text he claimed was bus call, and Grantaire hadn’t been able to do anything but nod, and Enjolras had gingerly given him the most awkward, most embarrassing hug of his entire life. And then he’d been gone.

Maybe that invisible state line was a portal to hell, Grantaire thinks with a pathetic half-laugh. Maybe this just looks like Pennsylvania. Because it sure feels like a divinely comic nightmare.

 

—

 

There’s a show, and then a party, and to be honest Grantaire is endlessly glad that they only have a handful of dates left to play. The northeast shows are closer together. They’ll be more crowded, too, since the populations are denser here and many of the bands are coming back to their home territories—Grantaire, the Jondrettes, and the Rosas included. 

Everyone has rallied here at the near-end of the tour, and the vibe is almost as manic as their first innocent week together. There are more in-jokes, and the weight of the shared experience, but it’s very nearly just as joyful.

Right now, for example, Grantaire watches as Eponine and Musichetta serenade their gathered friends with an endless stream of romantic duets: “Jackson,” “Islands in the Stream,” “Leather and Lace.” They trade off the male and female parts, lowering or raising their pitch ridiculously and giggling so much that half the lyrics are garbled.

It’s perfect.

The little collective they’ve formed over the weeks cheers and claps along, throws out song suggestions one after the other, hands around beers and other bottles.

He’s going to miss them, Grantaire realizes with a hitched breath, when this is all over. He hangs back, eyes looking from Courf’s curly black hair to Combeferre’s buzz cut, from Bossuet’s bald scalp to Jehan’s beautifully messy blondish hair. Their backs form a tight half-circle around the girls, who dance and laugh and tease.

Grantaire feels his eyes prickle and takes a few steps back. He turns away, just to regroup, just to get a little more air, and walks around the corner of the bus.

He bangs right into Enjolras.

Grantaire jumps back only to find that Enjolras’s hands have come up, gripping his upper arms to steady him. There’s a pause before Enjolras drops his hands and steps back. He shuffles his feet a little.

“Can we—?” Grantaire begins.

“I wanted—” Enjolras says at the same time.

They both stop short.

Enjolras fixes him with a determined look. “Sorry,” he says. “You start.”

“Oh, um,” Grantaire stutters. “Can we, uh, can we talk?”

Enjolras nods emphatically. “Where?” he asks.

Grantaire blinks. “Anywhere?”

“I mean,” Enjolras says, looking over Grantaire’s shoulder at the amassed crowd of their friends. “Maybe we should walk…?”

A quick glance back shows Grantaire that no one has noticed them hovering awkwardly together here. He breathes slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Enjolras waits for Grantaire to lead the way. Grantaire scuffs his foot against the pavement, sets out hesitantly the way he’d already been walking—away from the party, away from his van, away from anything in particular. 

They walk in silence for a while, until finally Enjolras clears his throat and says, “So you wanted to talk?”

Grantaire shrugs. “Yeah?”

“About what?” Enjolras prompts.

Grantaire finds one pebble in their path particularly onerous. He kicks it ahead of them with some force. 

“Grantaire?”

“Sorry. Sorry. There’s no good way to say this,” Grantaire says. “I’ll just say it. I am deeply apologetic about the other night.” 

“Why?” Enjolras asks.

“All that stuff I said. I mean. I’m sorry to dump all that on you. The follies of a loose tongue and a looser heart.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, and purses his lips. “I asked. I thought that made it clear I care.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, “you care. Like, abstractly. Concern for ‘man in the abstract,’ as any good philosopher has. Community as no more than a faceless crowd. Is this because I said I liked your band? I take it back. Only pretend you don’t see me lingering in the last row, long after my drink is gone.”

Enjolras pauses just long enough to break stride. “Don’t do that. You always do that.”

Grantaire slows his step, lets him catch back up. “Do what?”

“Act like I’m famous and you’re not.”

Grantaire scoffs. “I’m not. I don’t have the following you have. Not even close.”

“Why can’t you see that people genuinely show up to be close to you? The same as they do for us.”

“I have no pretension of allure. And I certainly can’t claim your striking onstage appearance.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Enjolras asks.

“Why can’t you see that people genuinely show up because you’re hot?” Grantaire parrots back.

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “And that’s all I am, right? The hot one?”

“If the Grecian mold fits…” 

“Please,” Enjolras says. “Tell me one I haven’t read in a dozen music magazines.”

Grantaire laughs. “Apollo strains against his radiance. The sun-bright god darkens his brow at being reminded of his light.” He shakes his head. “Ugh, the heat has addled my brain and ruined my meter. That’ll never make a decent lyric.” He pauses. “I’m sorry, I seem to have lost the thread.”

“You were calling me hot,” Enjolras reminds him.

“Painfully so. Unfairly. Torturously,” Grantaire says. “Shall I go on?”

“Please don’t. I’m afraid it isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Grantaire looks around. “We’ve made it all the way around the parking lot,” he says with a smirk.

Enjolras stops walking. He rests his weight on the chain link fence they’ve found and begun to skirt. His eyes on Grantaire are heavy. Appraising? Grantaire wishes he could stop trying to read those expressions. It never helps.

“You’re right about the heat,” Enjolras says. “Let’s rest a moment.” He sits down against the fence, his back making it bow outwards where he leans. 

Grantaire lowers himself gingerly to the ground some inches away. 

“As charming as your banter is,” Enjolras begins.

“You really think I’m charming?” Grantaire interrupts.

“It isn’t why I was looking for you.”

“And you were looking for me? How the heavens shine on me this day,” Grantaire says.

Enjolras stops him with a look. 

“Sorry. I’ll desist.”

Enjolras takes a deep breath. “I’m the one who’s sorry. That’s what I came to say.”

Grantaire flinches. He can’t help flinching, ready immediately for the pity he always knew was coming. Sorry I slept with you, Grantaire can practically hear Enjolras say. 

“Please don’t,” is all he can manage to get out. 

Enjolras looks stung. “Just let me get through this, okay? I’m sorry. I have been thinking a lot about this summer and I just, I really think I owe you an apology for my part in things.”

Grantaire wills his inner monologue to shut the hell up before it gets any worse. He nods sedately, like everything in him isn’t begging him to run from this. Like he isn’t sitting here despite all his better instincts, waiting to hear what Enjolras could possibly say, now that he’s actually addressing the topic of their—whatever. Relationship. 

Enjolras goes on. “Like, I mean. I am sorry that I willfully ignored your emotional life and the things that I knew. About you. And your—?” He is hesitant, and yet sounds rehearsed. “I’m sorry as fuck that I pushed you to play for that suit. I didn’t realize… I’m sorry I ignored your feelings. And my feelings. And, and all feelings. Ever.” He shakes his head a little. “Courfeyrac says that’s a bad habit I have. I guess he’s right.”

Grantaire doesn’t want to talk about his feelings. Or Enjolras’s, really. Instead he says, “It’s okay. I mean, about the show. Even the disgraced can rise again.”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have held it over you like that. I just… I want so much for you.”

“Yet there’s so much I’m not meant to have.”

Enjolras rests a hand on his arm. “Grantaire, please don’t say that.” 

The warmth of Enjolras’s palm seeps into Grantaire’s skin. He shrugs a little, shakes it off. Enjolras withdraws slowly. “Why not?” Grantaire asks. “The mainstage, the record deal.” He swallows. “You. Line them all in the never-meant-to-be column.”

Enjolras looks sincerely puzzled. “But you— That was your choice. I mean, you were the one who said—”

“No I didn’t, I would never—” Grantaire stops himself short. “You made it clear, in, um, fuck, I forget where we were.”

Enjolras frowns with a purse to his lips. “How did I ‘make it clear’?”

Grantaire tugs his hair in frustration. “I don’t know, you just, you weren’t interested anymore, I offered and you weren’t interested.” He shrugs again, helplessly. 

Enjolras looks at him for a long moment. Grantaire fights the urge to fidget. Finally, Enjolras says, “I wasn’t interested right then. And the next thing I knew, _you told me_ we weren’t sleeping together anymore.”

Grantaire rubs his eye. “Wait,” he says. “You mean—”

Enjolras leans forward. When had he gotten so close? Grantaire cuts himself short, watching Enjolras get closer.

“Grantaire,” he says quietly. “Do you still want to…” He lets the question trail off.

Grantaire licks his lips.

Enjolras must take it as a sign, because he keeps leaning forward—just as slowly as always—until he can kiss Grantaire. His lips are soft, are warmer than his hand, and Grantaire feels himself practically dissolve into his desire. 

He must sag a little, because Enjolras reaches out with both hands to steady his shoulders. Grantaire gives into the feeling. He’s missed it like hell. He lets Enjolras hold him up, lets Enjolras tease his lips open with his tongue. He leans into it for all he’s worth. 

Grantaire gets his hands underneath Enjolras’s t-shirt and goes for the button of his jean shorts. He moans a little in his throat as Enjolras’s hands, still on his shoulders, grip tighter. 

Enjolras is practically panting when he pulls away from the kiss. Grantaire keeps his hands at Enjolras’s button, just hovering there, feeling his stomach rise and fall with his breathing.

Enjolras leans his forehead against Grantaire’s. “Please stop,” he breathes out.

Grantaire freezes. His chest burns with that mix of disappointment and shame. Had he really misread this?

But Enjolras isn’t moving away. Grantaire holds as still as he can. He’s braced for whatever, for the part where Enjolras finally does pull away. 

Instead, Enjolras says, still breathy, “Sorry, I mean. I don’t want you to stop. But if you don’t, I won’t be able to.”

“Would that be so bad?” Grantaire asks softly.

Now Enjolras pulls back, just far enough to look Grantaire in the eye. “I want—Fuck. I want to do this. But I’d rather take you on a nice date first.” 

Grantaire bursts out laughing and has to hide his face in his hands. 

“Um,” Enjolras says.

“Sorry, sorry,” Grantaire chokes out. He’s still laughing. “Blame my shattered nerves. I’m delicate, you know.”

Enjolras snorts. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true! And my heart might not survive another reversal. Better we chuck it now and not tempt the gods.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, and takes hold of his hand. “You are actually one of the most headstrong, willful, and—fuck—brave people I have ever met. I feel certain you won’t expire from one date with me.”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

“Is that a yes?” Enjolras’s hand grips tighter. “When?”

“I’d say tonight, but—”

“Bus call in a couple hours,” Enjolras says with regret.

“Right,” Grantaire answers. “And I need my rest for tomorrow’s drive across… whatever state we’re in now.”

“Tomorrow night, then? After our set.”

Grantaire nods. “I meant what I said before. Look for me at the back of the crowd, enraptured, impatient, and in awe.”

“Come watch from sidestage, it’ll be easier to gauge if what you say is true,” Enjolras says with a wicked smirk. 

“Pure poetry,” Grantaire says as he stands and offers Enjolras a hand up. “You are Apollo through and through.”

 

—

 

Grantaire buzzes through the drive, through his set, through the rest of the evening. It’s anticipation, he thinks, but underneath it, he can’t help but feel something else. A kind of dread? The sense of something large, impending, and not necessarily good. A big ‘what if, what then’ chattering around in him, filling his mind with all the worst versions of what’s to come.

He wishes he could shake it. He tries. Tries to conjure his best self, his most confident mindset. Tries to conjure that person Enjolras said he was yesterday. 

If he doesn’t feel quite successful, well, he’ll just have to get Enjolras to remind him. 

Grantaire’s on his way to let Enjolras remind him, to watch their set from sidestage as he promised, when he crosses paths with Bahorel, who is absolutely fuming. The set of his jaw is dangerous, even without the still pinkish scar running the length of his face between cheekbone and temple. 

“You okay?” Grantaire says cautiously.

“Fucking useless is what I am today,” Bahorel answers with heat.

Grantaire cocks his head in invitation to continue.

Bahorel does. “Goddamn backwater sheriff’s department decided we can’t run security well enough on our own, despite having done it, you know, all fucking summer. Forced us to hire in extra local rent-a-cops or something, _and_ sent some bloated dickface to oversee them and us.” He stops, sucks in a harsh breath. “Sorry, old friend, you seem to be getting all my spleen today.”

Grantaire rests a friendly hand on his shoulder. “No worries. As long as your other humors stay where they are.”

“It’ll take all my humor to get through this day,” Bahorel responds. 

“And two more to keep your legs underneath you. Never fear, you are humerus yet.” Grantaire giggles a little at his own joke. “I wish you the best of luck with it.”

“Wish me extra bail money in case I punch this bastard Javert right in his smug pig face.” Bahorel tips Grantaire a sarcastic salute. His radio crackles to life and he steps away to listen.

Grantaire shivers despite the warm night. He makes his way up the stairs to the wings of the mainstage, casting around for anyone else he might know. Cosette and Eponine must have played an earlier set. They’re nowhere to be seen. He finds an out of the way nook where he can see the stage and the assembled crowd, waiting with shouts and the feeling of a restless buzz. He notices the usual security crew is mostly gone, especially at the front of the stage. Replaced, he guesses, by the hired forces Bahorel mentioned. 

Enjolras is being fitted with his in-ear monitor. His blond hair stands out in the dark, and Grantaire has no problem finding him. Radiant, even here. He turns his head as if he feels Grantaire’s stare and does that thing that Grantaire has come to realize is his version of a smile. Grantaire can’t help but smile back.

The bustle backstage picks up, as everyone rushes about getting ready to start. Grantaire watches Combeferre and Courfeyrac assemble themselves. Then Enjolras appears beside him, quick as anything, and whispers in his ear. “Tonight?” 

Grantaire shivers for a second time, much harder, feeling that anticipatory thrill in his whole body. Right down to his toes. “Tonight,” he breaths back.

Enjolras kisses him quickly on the corner of the mouth, turns, and stalks out onstage.

The lights bathe Friends! in blood red, and then everything goes to hell.

 

—

 

Later there will be accusations, analyses, op-eds, and probably even a fucking documentary on what went wrong. Ticket prices, water prices, disrespectful youth. A rumor of a death in town, a death at the last show, all unconfirmed. Friends! will take their share of the blame for incitement. Some will say they knew this would happen, some that they never could have seen it coming.

Right now, all Grantaire knows is that he’s awash in a sea of fists, elbows, heavy feet. Screams. 

Friends! doesn’t even make it through their first song. The restless buzz becomes a violent swaying, forcing the front rows against the barricade that keeps them separate from the lip of the stage. Grantaire sees the guards try to push them back, but there’s nowhere for those kids to go, shoved as their are against a reinforced metal fence and the surging weight of hundreds of other people. Grantaire sees Enjolras see what’s happening, too, sees him falter on the chorus and make to stop the song. But the kids at the front are clawing their way over the barricade, which collapses in on itself, past the helpless guards.

And then the pinned swarm the stage.

Grantaire moves almost before he can think. He keeps sight of Enjolras’s bright hair, even in the chaos, and he throws himself toward it. The riotous crowd is rippling through and over and past everything—some are smashing equipment, but it seems as though most are just trying to keep their feet underneath them. Security shelters and hustles talent away, but there are far too few of them, and simply too many people. Grantaire wades against the tide of the crowd. He is determined. He will not stop. He heads for the only thing he can see to keep safe.

He finds his way to Enjolras, finally, in the confusion. The swell of people has lessened some, but the destruction rages on. Grantaire reaches across an endless space, reaching for Enjolras, he doesn’t even know why. A girl goes down on her knees between them. She’s tripped, Grantaire realizes suddenly, and she is shaking. He and Enjolras kneel on either side of her and get hands under her arms. 

Enjolras shouts something, but Grantaire can’t hear it above the roar. They haul the girl up, try to bracket and brace her with their bodies, but she’s off and running as soon as she gets her feet underneath her. They lose sight of her immediately as the press of bodies swallows her up. 

Enjolras has blood on his chest—Grantaire panics, reaches for it, thinking it’s Enjolras’s own—but Enjolras grasps his hand as it comes up. He grasps and tugs, trying to pull Grantaire—where? To safety, but where is that? Grantaire looks around quickly. The parking lot looks emptier than here, if they can just make it down the back stairs. Behind them the audience has become a riot. The fairgrounds are torn apart, from what Grantaire can tell, tents pulled down and makeshifts booths smashed to bits. 

They can’t go that way. Enjolras is still tugging. Grantaire tugs back, yells, “C’mon,” as loud as he can. 

There’s a weird moment where it feels like they are moving at cross-purposes, tugging each other’s hands in the wrong direction. Grantaire shoves himself forward, through what’s left of the surging crowd, towards the stairs for all he’s worth. He gets swept up in the tide, propelled forward by the last clutch of people pushing and shoving their way through.

The hand Grantaire is holding slips free, and by the time he can turn around—

Enjolras is gone.


	14. Manhattan

Grantaire’s van cannot fucking drive fast enough. His mind cannot think fast enough, racing through horrible endless possibilities, trying and then discarding and then trying again all the various worst outcomes he can possibly imagine.

Gav is hunched in the passenger seat next to him, feet on the dash, fingers tapping and scratching anxiously on his pulled-up legs. He’s so much like his big sister, Grantaire thinks, and then another worst scenario hits him with a hitch of his breath: Gav alone, Gav abandoned, Gav sent back into the foster system without Eponine to take care of him.

_Fuck_ , Eponine, please be okay. Please be fucking okay, Grantaire thinks wildly.

 

—

 

Grantaire had barely made it to the parking lot, feeling bruised to hell, when Gav came tearing around a corner. He felt a rush of relief as that familiar mop of dirty hair came into view, but fear still gnawed at him. His eyes scanned the horizon, searching desperately for anyone else they knew. Where was everyone?

Gav grabbed Grantaire’s arm and clung. He was panting heavily, eyes wide, chest heaving. 

Grantaire reached out both hands to steady him. “What’s wrong?” he asked frantically. “Are you okay? Where were you?”

Gav shook his head. “I’m fine, I was by second stage, but shit, shit shit. The bus is gone. Our bus is gone and I can’t find anyone and I— I got—” He broke off in something that sounded like a sob.

Grantaire pulled him immediately into a hug. “It’s okay,” he told the top of Gav’s head. “It’s okay. We’ll find everyone.” He hoped, at least.

Gav struggled out of Grantaire’s grip. “No, but—” He raised his phone, clutched in his other hand. “It’s Eponine. She’s hurt.”

“What?” Grantaire asked quickly. “How do you know? Where is she?”

“I got a text from Marius, saying they were putting her in an ambulance, and then the stupid goddamn network went dead.”

Grantaire dug violently into his pocket for his own phone. There was nothing. He tapped the screen to dial Eponine’s number.

_We’re sorry_ , a robotic voice said. _All circuits are busy. Please try your call later._

“Fuck,” he said hotly.

 

—

 

The windy, mountainish road that will take them away from the concert grounds is jammed with cars, buses, emergency vehicles, and pedestrians. Grantaire wants to cry with frustration. He is barely holding it together and only then for Gav, who looks nearer to tears that Grantaire has ever seen him. Cops—or sheriffs or whatever—work to direct traffic as everyone inches along, fleeing the riot in slow motion. Grantaire is torn between thanking them for their service and spitting on each and every last one, whose incompetent fellow deputies let this happen. Let Eponine get hurt. 

Grantaire itches to slam his foot on the gas, to wreck everything on his way—where? It’s pointless, he realizes. He and Gav don’t know what hospital Eponine has been taken to, and wouldn’t know how to get there if they did. 

It takes an hour to make it the three miles down Montage Mountain Rd. It feels like years. It feels like fucking decades. 

It feels so scary.

The van is tense, silent, until they cross under I-81 and Gav’s phone explodes with text messages. The cell networks must be back up, or they’d hit another, not-overloaded tower. Neither of them really care, as Gav frantically sorts through them to find what they really need: the hospital where Eponine has been taken. 

Grantaire drives just to drive until Gav can find the right text from Marius and pull up directions. The hospital, thank god, is only a few minutes away.

They meet Marius in the waiting room. His eyes are puffy and red—he’s most certainly been crying. 

Gav rushes to him, reaching out for Marius’s arm, needing someone to hold onto. Grantaire hangs back a bit.

“Is she okay?” he asks, his throat tight.

“I don’t know yet,” Marius answers. “I found her on the grounds, the paramedics said she had broken ribs and maybe head trauma.” He twists his hands together. “They were worried about internal bleeding. She’s been back there,” he gestures through the waiting room doors, “and they won’t tell me anything.”

Grantaire sinks into a chair. Gav sits beside him, his face worried. He looks so young like this. 

“It’s okay,” he tells Gav. “She’s tough. She’ll be okay.”

It’s another hour before a doctor comes out to talk to them. Marius has been on the phone with Cosette, who was safe on the bus when the riot began, and who demands that their driver take her to the hospital immediately, and with Valjean, who’s on his way from New York as fast as he can travel.

Finally, finally, a curly-haired woman in a white coat comes out to them. She introduces herself as Dr. Ghosh. Cosette holds Gav’s shoulders while Marius stands, bending his tall frame over the doctor to hear what she has to say. Grantaire stays seated.

“Eponine is going to be fine,” are the first words from her mouth. Grantaire closes his eyes in relief. “She’s got three broken ribs and a concussion, plus some bruising from the blunt trauma. But there’s no sign of internal bleeding. She was remarkably lucky. We’ll keep her overnight for observation, and she’ll need to rest and recover for several weeks, but she’s going to be okay.”

Gav’s shoulders begin to shake. Cosette pulls him into a tight hug, letting him cry tears of relief all over her dress.

Valjean arrives a while later and they’re all escorted back to see Eponine. In the hospital lights, her tan skin looks sallow. Her hair is a mess, but the bruises must be hidden by the hospital gown, because otherwise, she looks the same. 

Gav hugs her gingerly, looking like he wants to cling. Grantaire puts an arm around him when he steps away from her bed.

Valjean takes her hand. “How are you feeling?” he asks.

Eponine laughs throatily, but then winces. “Like shit,” she says. “Like I got trampled.”

“They say you can go home tomorrow,” Gav tells her.

“What about the rest of the tour?”

“You can’t sing with broken ribs,” Cosette says gently. “You have to take it easy—”

“There is no rest of the tour,” Valjean interrupts.

“What?” Grantaire says.

“I can’t expose anyone to that kind of risk again, and the insurers agree. We’re canceling the rest of the dates.”

Eponine’s eyes follow the conversation, but her face is crumpled in pain.

“So everyone will just… go home?” Gav asks.

“Where is everyone else?” Eponine asks weakly.

Grantaire bites his lip hard. 

“We don’t know yet,” Cosette answers. “We haven’t heard.”

 

—

 

Valjean puts them all up in a hotel a block away from the hospital, but no one can sleep. Grantaire, Gav, Marius, and Cosette stay together, watching bad films on pay-per-view, but mostly watching their phones.

News trickles in slowly from the aftermath of what will now be known as the final Barricades Rise show. At least 20 other people sustained injuries on par with Eponine’s. Most of the performers are fine—it’s the audience who took the brunt on the damage. Two or three were arrested for destruction of property, and there was talk of the sheriff’s office cracking down hard on innocent crowd members, but no one knows how they’d wrangle that, given that most everyone fled the grounds as soon as they could. 

Musichetta texts Grantaire to say that all the Rosas are fine. Valjean confirms that none of the security staff were injured, and Cosette hears from several friends in other bands that they’re all okay too. But there’s no word from Friends!, not even Combeferre or Courfeyrac.

Grantaire drifts off to an uneasy sleep around 3 am, still clutching his phone, still waiting for a text that doesn’t come.

12 hours later, Eponine is cleared to leave the hospital. She’s loopy on pain meds and has a limited range of motion, and she has to be watched closely for seizures or other side effects of her concussion, but she gets to go home. 

Valjean pulls Grantaire aside as an orderly wheels Eponine to the car he’s ordered. “She’ll need someone to stay with her, at least for a few days. Can you…?”

“Of course,” Grantaire says immediately.

Grantaire follows the car service back to New York in his van, and for at least two hours he can pretend like they’re still on tour, sort of, like he’s driving to the NYC date they would have eventually played. 

He parks in the least sketchy pay-by-the-month lot in the area, and helps Marius help Eponine out of the car and into her Upper West Side apartment. Gav crashes in his own room, exhausted from worry and lack of sleep. Grantaire gives Ep some distance to get settled, heading back to his van to gather his mostly-dirty clothes and both guitars.

When he gets back up the stairs and into Ep’s apartment, Valjean, Cosette, and Marius are saying their goodbyes. Valjean gives Grantaire a silent nod. Cosette hugs him, squeezing incredibly tight, and says, “Take care of her for me.” Marius waves awkwardly.

Then the door clicks shut, and Grantaire is standing in the living room alone.

He gives Eponine five minutes before knocking softly on the door frame to her room. “Are you asleep?”

Eponine closes her eyes and shakes her head. Tears are tracking, slowly and quietly, down her face.

Grantaire is at her side in an instant. He wants to hug her, wants to wrap her up in his arms, but he’s afraid of hurting her injuries. Instead, he takes her hand.

“Sorry,” is the first thing she says.

“For what?” Grantaire asks gently.

“For crying,” she says. “For getting hurt. For interrupting… everything.”

Grantaire holds her hand tighter. “You don’t have to apologize. None of this was your fault.”

“I know that,” she tells him. “But still.” She takes a deep breath and then winces. “Thank you for being here. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve any of this. I’m not a very good person.”

“That’s bullshit,” Grantaire says. “What have you ever done but been there for me? For all of us?”

Another round of tears slide down Ep’s face. “There was this moment,” she says. “When I saw Marius over me, getting me help. There was this moment where I thought, ‘Now he’ll realize that he loves me. Now he’ll see.’” She closes her eyes again, her grip on Grantaire’s hand tightening. 

Grantaire leans into her, as close as he can to a hug, his free hand resting lightly on her head. Eponine lets herself be held like this, awkward though it is, and shakes through her tears.

“Shhhh,” Grantaire says. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

It’s several long moments before Eponine is ready to pull away. She extricates her hand from Grantaire’s, bringing both palms up to rub her eyes. “Ugh,” she says finally. “I feel gross.”

“You look gross,” Grantaire teases. Eponine laughs a tiny laugh. “Shower?”

“Yes please,” she answers.

 

—

 

Summer in New York does not abdicate. Mid-July is hotter than hell, hotter than second stage in the middle of the day, hotter than even Louisiana. Heat rises off the pavement, hangs muddy in the air between concrete and stone buildings. 

The heat drains everything, but especially Grantaire’s already-weak desire to leave Eponine’s apartment. 

“I don’t need you every second, you know,” she tells him after a few days.

“I know,” he says. “But you need me sometimes. Especially since Gav is back to running wild in the streets.”

“You could call some of our friends,” she suggests.

“I don’t feel like it,” Grantaire shrugs. “Besides, your living room has air conditioning, cable, and my guitar. What else could I possibly want?”

“I am not going to answer that,” Eponine says with a laugh.

Grantaire can’t laugh along. He knows now that Enjolras must be fine—surely he would’ve heard something if otherwise—which means he also knows where Enjolras’s priorities are. Or aren’t, rather. They certainly aren’t with Grantaire. They are anywhere but.

Eponine retreats to her room, saying her ribs have started aching again.

Grantaire sits in her absurdly large bay window with his guitar on his lap. He watches one white butterfly come and go in the street.

When it floats out of his view, he tries one chord, and then another. The only thing he has to show for the summer are a few verses about his friends. He stretches his hands, then plays them back to back. They almost fit together. He tries out a bridge, plays it straight through until a chorus occurs to him. 

Pretty soon he has a whole song. His first in months.

It makes him feel strangely better. 

 

—

 

Marius and Cosette come to visit the next day.

Grantaire excuses himself for the afternoon. It’s mostly to give Eponine her privacy, but there’s a little part of him that just can’t handle seeing them or talking to them right now. 

It’s the longest he’s been out of the apartment since they got back. 

He gets an iced coffee across the street and then takes the stairs down into the subway. He hasn’t been back to his one-room studio in Flatbush for more than a week, not even counting the months before that when the tour was actually happening. 

It’s hot underground, but cool on the train. Grantaire transfers from the 1 train to the 2 and rides all the way south into Brooklyn. 

His building isn’t far from the train, but he’s sweating by the time he arrives. He checks his pocket for his keys. They dig into his fingers, a comforting weight. 

Grantaire just grips them, right there on his front stoop. He can’t go in. He doesn’t know why.

Actually, that’s a lie. He does know. 

He just doesn’t want to admit to it.

Grantaire holds his keys tighter. A middle-aged woman steps around him, on her way to the building’s front door. He doesn’t have to see her face to know she’s giving him a weird look. 

He’d be giving himself a weird look too.

But if Grantaire goes in there now—into that apartment he locked up and left at the beginning of the summer—that means it’s all really over. It means the summer is past, and he is back in Brooklyn, alone, with no plans and no future. 

And he’s not ready to face that. Not yet.

The train ride back takes just as long. Grantaire lets himself cautiously into Eponine’s apartment, but Cosette and Marius appear to be gone. 

Eponine is on the couch. Grantaire kicks off his shoes, settles into the chair across from her. “How’d that go?” he asks.

“Closure after closure,” Eponine says. “It’s good to get it over with.”

“Over?” Grantaire says, a touch of panic in his voice.

“With Marius, I mean,” Eponine clarifies. “I gave them my blessing.” She sighs. “Not that they needed it, but. I don’t want to let it get in the way of the band.”

Grantaire is more relieved than he can say. “I’m glad,” he tells her simply. “And what about Combeferre?”

Eponine looks away. “I told you. That’s over. It’s been over.”

“So you feel like you got closure on that too?”

“Jesus, you sound like my therapist,” Eponine says. “I don’t need it. I know.” She looks back to him, eyes searching his face. “Enough about my bullshit. What about yours?”

Grantaire looks to his hands. “I wish I could say the same. About closure, I mean.”

“You could always call him,” Eponine says.

“I don’t even have his number,” Grantaire protests. “We never…”

“I can get it.”

Grantaire’s eyebrows go up. “How?”

“Combeferre texted me the day after we got back, to see if I was okay,” Eponine explains. “I can just ask him for it.”

Grantaire’s stomach sinks. 

“R?” Eponine says. She leans closer to him, awkwardly.

“So he is okay,” Grantaire says, mostly to himself.

“Aw, shit,” Eponine says with a shake of her head.

 

—

 

Another week goes by. Another song gets written, and then another. Eponine is doing better and better, regaining her range of motion. Her bruises are still purple-black and kind of horrifying, but she swears they don’t hurt that much anymore.

Grantaire can’t say the same.

He’s got bruises of his own, actual ones, on his knees and his shins, but they’re nothing compared to the metaphoric ones he’s wearing around. The bruises on his stupid fucking heart, he absolutely does not want to admit. 

He writes about it instead.

He’s made it all the way across the country and back, and all the way from hearing notes in his head to being able to do something with them. The strings of his guitar sound exactly like he means them to. 

Thank god.

They aren’t exactly ready, but he plays the new songs for Eponine anyway. 

“They sound like you, but not like you,” she tells him. “Like you’ve grown.”

Grantaire nods.

“Teach me that last one,” she says. 

“Are you okay to sing?” he asks.

“No,” she says with a shrug. “But I’m going to do it anyway.”

Grantaire actually ventures out of the apartment the next day. He gets a sandwich at the Cuban place down the block, then lingers to watch a street performer drumming on plastic buckets. After that he wanders the streets until he’s too hot to continue. He stops at the closest tienda and buys cookies and cream ice cream. It’s his and Eponine’s favorite.

He lets himself back into the apartment and puts the ice cream in the freezer. There are three water glasses on the table, and Eponine’s bedroom door is closed. Weird.

Grantaire goes back into the living room. It looks the same as before, but a piece of paper Grantaire has never seen is laying on the coffee table by itself. 

He picks it up. It’s divided into two columns. “PRO,” one side reads in block letters. “CON” heads the other. 

Grantaire cocks his head. The handwritten lists are a little messy, a little hard to make out. Grantaire pulls the paper closer to him, trying to make sense of the words. 

The front door opens behind him. “Gav?” he says, as he starts to turn around.

He freezes at the sight of the tall figure walking through the door.

“Um, no,” Enjolras says. “Hi?”

Grantaire opens his mouth but no sound comes out. 

“Sorry,” Enjolras says. “Combeferre came to visit Eponine, and I wanted to give them their privacy.”

Grantaire is still frozen stock still.

“Are you okay?” Enjolras asks. He crosses into the room and sits down on the chair. 

Grantaire takes a deep breath, willing himself to say something. 

The door to Eponine’s bedroom opens. She walks out first. Combeferre exits behind her, looking a little sheepish. 

“Hey,” he says to Grantaire.

“Hey,” Grantaire echoes back automatically.

Enjolras checks his phone. “We have to get going. You ready?”

“Yeah,” Combeferre answers. “Later,” he tells Grantaire.

“Later,” Grantaire returns.

“I’ll walk you to the stairs,” Eponine offers. She throws Grantaire a sympathetic smile before heading out the front door.

Grantaire looks back to Enjolras, who is still sitting there in Eponine’s chair. “Um,” he says weakly.

“Sorry,” Enjolras says again. “We really do have to go. But I wanted to ask you something before we leave.”

Grantaire’s heart could not beat faster. “Yeah?” he says, hoping his pounding pulse isn’t audible. 

Enjolras fishes a piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it over. Grantaire is almost scared to look down. What could Enjolras have brought? And what could he want to ask? 

Grantaire blinks, forces himself to focus on the paper.

It’s a flyer for a show.

“We’re putting together a benefit thing for the kids who were hurt in Scranton,” Enjolras says. “I was hoping you’d play a set?”

Grantaire’s racing heart drops with a force that feels like a punch in the gut.

“Oh,” he answers. “Sure.”

Enjolras smiles blindingly. “Great. We’ll be in touch about the details.” He stands and heads for the door.

“Great,” Grantaire tells the empty doorway.


	15. Brooklyn

Grantaire knows this couch. He’s been here before. With a pillow pressed to his face that smells like— and overgrown palmettos casting shadows on the stucco walls—

No, wait. That’s not right. 

He rolls groggily onto his side, eyes barely cracking open. There’s an overstuffed chair, tv, bookshelf, and to Grantaire’s mostly-asleep brain it looks so familiar, too familiar to be—

Oh, he realizes, coming fully awake. Eponine’s living room. Not Enjolras’s. Right.

Soft footsteps shuffle across the living room floor. Grantaire closes his eyes, pretends to still be asleep. He hears the front door open, and then Eponine whispers, “I’ll call you later, okay?”

Grantaire opens his eyes slowly, gently, unable to help himself. Eponine is standing in the open door in a t-shirt and boxers, her long hair messy down her back. She’s facing Combeferre, who looks rumpled in the morning light. He places a solid hand on her waist and, smiling, leans down. Eponine goes onto her tiptoes to meet him in a kiss. She wraps her arms around his shoulders. 

Grantaire closes his eyes again. 

He hears the door close and Eponine turn, quietly, to leave the living room.

“Good morning,” he calls. His voice is hoarse with sleep.

Her footsteps halt. “Morning,” she says. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

Grantaire rolls over and squints at her. “Make me a coffee, you’ll be forgiven.”

Eponine pads around the kitchen as Grantaire gets up to use the bathroom. By the time he brushes his teeth, splashes some water on his face, and returns to the living room, Eponine is curled into her chair nursing a huge cup of coffee. She’s set Grantaire’s mug on the table by the couch.

“So,” Grantaire says. He raises his mug to his lips and takes a deep breath. 

“So,” Eponine says back. 

“That happened.”

“It did,” she says, eyes on her coffee.

Grantaire takes a long sip. “Maybe I should move home,” he says.

Eponine squints at him. “You don’t have to.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I know,” he tells her. “But you’re clearly feeling better if you’re doing sleepovers—”

“We didn’t,” she protests.

Grantaire laughs, holding up a hand. “I don’t need details.” He takes another sip. “I just want you to be happy.”

Eponine’s fingers drum on her mug. “I want the same for you,” she says. “You can stay here as long as you like, but if it makes you happy to go home, I understand.”

“It’s time to be getting on with things. You know, life things.”

She nods. “But we’ll still see you at the benefit show, right?”

Grantaire pulls his legs up closer to himself. “Yeah, you will.” He takes another sip of coffee. It’s a welcome warmth in his chest. “Are you going to play? Are you well enough for that?”

“I’ll sing even if I’m not,” Eponine says. “I promised Cosette. And, um, Combeferre.” 

“Ooh, so there are promises involved?” Grantaire teases. “I must know more. Was it romantic when he showed up here?”

“Oh my god,” Eponine says. “He made a list of pros and cons. Like, he actually made a list. And brought it with him.”

“And?”

Eponine shrugs. “And the pro side won,” she says with a grin.

 

—

 

Grantaire moves back to Flatbush. It’s kind of anticlimactic, really, throwing open the door to his little studio and seeing all the things he’d left in the same places as he left them.

He does three loads of laundry and forces himself to actually put away all the newly-clean clothes. His apartment is a little stale after being shut up for so long. Grantaire opens the windows and turns up his window-unit AC. 

Then he sits on his bed, which is also his couch, and looks at the wall.

He’s not exactly sure what to do with himself now that he’s home. After being on the road, and then helping Eponine coalesce, he feels at a loss. His apartment is too quiet, even with the traffic noises outside. There’s no wafting drumbeat, no constant crowd noise, no rain or wind pushing at his van roof. 

He feels a little like someone dropped him at the bottom of the ocean. Muffled. Kind of in the dark.

The post-tour comedown will subside, Grantaire reminds himself. 

He putters around the apartment for a few days, writing and rewriting songs, making notes, planning a new setlist. On Tuesday, he takes a deep breath and texts Musichetta.

 _get yr cute ass to astoria by 7_ , she texts back.

Can’t argue with that.

Joly and Bossuet welcome him into their messy but cozy apartment, and then they all guide Grantaire to drinks at Sunswick. Feuilly joins them when he gets off work, and a few of the Rosas’ other friends drift in and out of their circle as the night goes on. 

Grantaire has fun—he talks and drinks and laughs along—but the dark wood of the bar is nothing like the clear summer nights they used to spend drinking together. By the time he’s on the train back home, he can barely remember anything they talked about, any jokes that got told.

He curls himself, half-buzzed, into his unmade bed, and falls asleep uneasily.

On Wednesday he resolves that he’ll call his label on Thursday. He’s got something to take them now, enough new songs to at least start thinking about his next recording session. Maybe he can do an EP, he thinks. That wouldn’t be too hard to get out.

Grantaire is just settling down to sleep, a 50s film noir pitched low on his tv, when his phone buzzes. He gropes for it in the dark, afraid it might be Eponine needing his help.

 _Hi_ , an unknown number has sent him.

He tosses the phone face down on the bed and rolls over.

It buzzes again. 

Grantaire sighs and retrieves it. He clicks the screen on.

 _It’s Enjolras_ , the text reads.

Grantaire sits straight up in the dark.

His phone buzzes yet again, and he nearly drops it into his lap.

 _I got your number from Eponine_ , the screen reads. 

 _Hi,_ Grantaire types back.

 _Oh good, you’re there_.

Grantaire’s fingers pause over the screen. He has no idea what to say. 

The phone buzzes again before he can decide.

_We booked the benefit for Saturday at Littlefield. Can you still make it?_

Grantaire’s shoulders sag. The benefit. Of course.

 _Yes_ , he texts back. 

And then he turns his phone all the way off and throws it across the room. 

It takes him until 3pm the next day to muster the desire to fish his phone out from under the tv stand and turn it back on. The empty screen stares at him for several long moments. 

Grantaire shoves it into his pocket and goes back to cleaning his fridge. He’d meant to call his label, but it was basically too late now. And the fridge really did need to be cleaned. 

A few minutes later, his phone buzzes several times in succession. He takes it out and clicks the screen on. 

All the texts are from Enjolras. From the night before. It must have taken a few minutes for the phone to reconnect to the network.

 _How are you?_ the first one reads. 

 _Are you okay?_ says the next.

There are several more in that vein, sent every 5 minutes or so. 

Then, finally: _Are you mad at me?_

 _Yes_ , Grantaire types with an angry stab of his fingers. He hits send before he can think better of it.

His phone is silent for the rest of the night.

On Friday, he calls his label. They want to hear the new songs. That’s a good sign, Grantaire guesses, as he sets a date and time to come in for a meeting. He squeezes himself in one week out—no use putting it off any longer than that.  

He eats dinner, washes his dishes, and then pulls out his draft setlist and his guitar.  

There’s a knock on his front door. Grantaire jumps.

No one ever knocks on his door. Ever.

Maybe if I just don’t answer, Grantaire thinks. 

Then he heaves his guitar off his lap and lays it down on his bed. He pads barefooted over to the door. 

Grantaire turns the knob and jerks it open to reveal Enjolras, fidgeting, in the hallway.

Grantaire has no fucking clue what his face does in that moment. Something undignified, he is sure.

“Hi?” Enjolras says.

“Oh my god, what is wrong with you,” Grantaire responds.

They stand there.

“Can I come in?” Enjolras finally asks. 

“Oh my god,” Grantaire says again as he moves aside.

There’s really nowhere to sit but the unmade bed. Grantaire gestures, and Enjolras perches on it awkwardly. Grantaire opts instead for the kitchen counter across the room, hopping up so that his feet bang against the cabinet underneath.

“Is this about tomorrow’s show?” Grantaire asks with clipped syllables. 

“No,” Enjolras says. “Well, sort of. But no.”

“Okay,” Grantaire says slowly.

“I just wanted to see how you’re doing.” Enjolras shrugs one shoulder. He looks ill at ease, far more than Grantaire has ever seen him.

“You—” Grantaire cuts himself off, tries to take a breath. “Now you want to see how I’m doing. After losing me in a crowd that could have crippled my best friend. After disappearing into that crowd, covered in blood, now you want to see how I’m doing?”

Enjolras looks down at his lap. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t even let me know you were okay.” Grantaire looks hard at Enjolras, beautiful as always but now looking small, nearly defeated.

“I _am_ sorry.” Enjolras pauses. “But to be fair,” he continues, his eyes meeting Grantaire’s, “you didn’t let me know you were okay either. I was worried.”

Grantaire falters. He has no response to this, to Enjolras’s solemn voice and serious face. To what Grantaire can see now, after months of looking at him, is care. Enjolras cares.

Instead he says, “Where did you even go?”

“To— help,” Enjolras answers. “To try to help. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, I thought you were right behind me.”

“And here I thought you welcomed a violent overthrow of hierarchical power structures,” Grantaire says.

“Not at the sake of our audience's wellbeing. Not that. I never wanted that,” he says.

“What did you want?”

“To make those kids in the crowd happy.” Enjolras looks down again, fidgets his feet against each other. “To make you happy,” he says to the floor.

Air leaves Grantaire’s chest in a nervous whoosh. He bites his lip.

“I know you’re mad at me,” Enjolras continues, “but I still want to take you on that date.”

Grantaire has to laugh. This can’t be real. 

Enjolras stands up, crosses the room to him. He puts his hand on Grantaire’s hand, where it’s braced against the counter. His skin feels just like Grantaire remembers, maybe even better. The touch grounds him. This is real. At least, Enjolras is really standing here, looking slightly up at him. 

“You’re going back to Florida,” Grantaire says helplessly.

Enjolras keeps looking up. “Not for a few weeks.”

“Just one date?” 

“To be followed by more dates,” Enjolras says. “I mean, if it goes well.”

“Oh.” Grantaire feels himself leaning forward, pulled into Enjolras’s gravity. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says softly. “I like you. So if I haven’t totally messed this up—”

“You haven’t,” Grantaire says back, just as softly. “I was never that mad.”

“Then will you kiss me?” Enjolras asks.

Grantaire nods. He licks his lips. Enjolras waits, patience of a deity, face tilted up ever so slightly. Grantaire leans forward the rest of the way. Gently, he kisses Enjolras’s upper lip. 

Enjolras steps closer still. Grantaire keeps their mouths together, parting his mouth just slightly. Enjolras matches him, and then they are kissing, softly, hesitantly. Enjolras’s hand tightens where it holds Grantaire’s, and his other hand comes up to rest lightly on the side of Grantaire’s neck.

Soon the kiss is anything but hesitant.

Grantaire lifts his hand, guiding Enjolras’s up to the back of his head. Enjolras gets the hint, winds his fingers softly into Grantaire’s hair. They are pressed together now, and Grantaire mimics Enjolras, cupping the back of his neck. 

Then Enjolras disentangles his fingers, put his hands on Grantaire’s lower back, and slides him right off the counter. “Can I blow you?” he asks, his voice close and husky.

“Oh, god,” Grantaire says. 

Enjolras’s hands stay at Grantaire’s back. He pulls back, just a bit. “Is that a yes?”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “Yes, fuck, yes,” he pants. “Please.”

Enjolras skims Grantaire’s shirt off first, kissing the hollow above his collarbone. Then he pushes until Grantaire is leaning back against the cabinets, and drops to his knees right there in Grantaire’s half-a-kitchen. If Grantaire wasn’t fully hard before, he is now, aching with want. 

Enjolras gets Grantaire’s pants and underwear off in two easy movements. Grantaire can practically feel Enjolras’s eyes raking across his body, hot as any touch. 

“I like it when you say yes to me,” Enjolras tell him, before leaning in to mouth at his hipbone. 

“I like it when you talk,” Grantaire says back. His voice goes breathy on the last word, as Enjolras runs his tongue right down to the base of Grantaire’s cock. 

“It’s gonna be a minute before I can do that again,” Enjolras says with a tiny smirk, and then swallows Grantaire down. His hands come up to brace Grantaire’s hips against the counter. He presses his thumbs into the the soft skin beside bone. 

It’s all Grantaire can do not to collapse to the floor right there. Enjolras’s mouth is hot, his lips stretched obscenely as he fucks his mouth on Grantaire’s cock. He hums a little and Grantaire brings his hands up, needing another anchor point. He cups the back of Enjolras’s head, gently, running his fingers over the prickling short hairs there. 

Enjolras hums again, pulls up to press his head into Grantaire’s hands, then bobs down again. He does something with his tongue Grantaire can’t even begin to describe. 

“Oh, fuck,” Grantaire stutters out. His breath feels ragged. “I’m not going to last long,” he says, a tiny hint of shame burning in his chest. 

Enjolras hums yet again, something like assent this time, and speeds up. He grips tight to Grantaire’s hips and sucks mercilessly, and then Grantaire is coming. Enjolras swallows and swallows. He pulls off Grantaire’s cock and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Grantaire stares dumbly down at him for a moment, and they are almost frozen there. Then Enjolras presses a hand to his own erection and says, “You are gorgeous like that.”

Grantaire hasn’t let go of the back of his head, hasn’t stopped stroking Enjolras’s buzzed hair. Now he runs his fingers up, past the line of his undercut, and sinks them into Enjolras’s blond curls. 

Enjolras nuzzles into the touch, and then stands, unfolding himself gracefully. Grantaire pulls him in for another kiss, feeling a stir as he tastes himself on Enjolras’s lips. 

“Talk to me,” he says when he breaks away.

“Your bed was comfortable,” Enjolras says. “If we lay down, can I have—”

“Anything,” Grantaire tells him. “You can have anything.”

Enjolras laughs. “Tonight I want your mouth. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since, um,” he falters as Grantaire starts to undo the buttons on his jeans. “I forget.”

“Atlanta?” Grantaire says, close to his ear.

“That’s it.”

Grantaire is naked, pressed torso to thigh against a fully clothed Enjolras, and he thinks maybe he should feel uncertain, or something, but he doesn’t. He walks Enjolras backwards to the bed, strips his clothes off slowly, and pushes him back until he’s spread out in the middle of the bed.

He takes a moment just to look. He takes a moment and feels like it’s okay just to look, just to let himself see. Enjolras, blond and bronzed and nearly glowing against his white sheets. That dusting of blond hair that leads from Enjolras’s belly button, underneath and down to the base of his erection, where a thatch of slightly darker hair curls. His strong thighs, strong forearms, strong shoulders. Grantaire just takes it all in. 

Enjolras looks up to him, a whine high in his throat. “Please,” he says.

“Please what?” Grantaire returns.

“Please touch me.”

Grantaire can’t refuse. Like this, Grantaire can’t refuse him anything. He wraps his fingers around Enjolras’s ankle, feels the sinew and bone there. 

Enjolras is keeping his hands remarkably still, though he shifts his hips slightly against the sheets. Grantaire wants to stretch this out, wants him aching and soft-eyed, but he also wants to dive in. He trails his fingers slowly up Enjolras’s calf, the back of his knee, inside of his thigh. 

He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t feel this time like he’ll drown. He lowers his knees onto the bed, then curves himself and plants a gentle kiss right on Enjolras’s cock.

Enjolras settles his hands in Grantaire’s dark hair, and Grantaire is done waiting. He takes Enjolras all the way down. He sucks playfully, lightly, then fans his tongue and presses hard. Enjolras moans from above him, throaty and deep. “You feel so good,” he says, fingers tightening in Grantaire’s hair. “So— I never— I wanted— Oh.”

Grantaire hums a little question right onto the head of Enjolras’s cock. 

Enjolras takes it for the encouragement it is. “I never stopped wanting this. You’re so perfect, so good. Just like that, oh god, please.”

Grantaire’s eyes water at the stretch of his jaw, the tug on his scalp, but it’s perfect. He loves this. He loves Enjolras, and if they can navigate with that out in the open, then Grantaire wants to try. He wants to try everything.

Right now he settles for bobbing his head in time to the twitches in Enjolras’s hips, his fingers. It isn’t long until Enjolras’s hips are stuttering with his orgasm. 

When Grantaire comes up for air, Enjolras is lying like a shipwreck in the middle of the bed. 

“You’re beautiful,” Grantaire says in awe.

“Come here,” Enjolras replies. He spreads an arm, invites Grantaire into his space. The window unit is working as hard as it can, and Grantaire is sticky with sweat, but he lies down anyway. 

Enjolras nuzzles into his side with ease. “About that date,” he says.

“I think I’m busy tomorrow night,” Grantaire says.

Enjolras’s laugh is sleepy. “Sunday, then?” He yawns. “Please?”

Grantaire kisses him lightly. “Sunday.”

 

—

 

Grantaire startles awake in the bright light of the next day to find Enjolras spread out, still naked, beside him. He looks, if possible, even more beautiful than the night before. There’s a harshness to his face that has disappeared in sleep, or something. 

He’s still looking when Enjolras blinks slowly awake. He does that thing that is the Enjolras version of smiling, right at Grantaire.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Good morning,” Grantaire returns. He casts a hand out to find his phone. “Actually,” he says when the screen lights up, “it’s technically afternoon now.”

Enjolras sits up, displacing the sheet. “It is? Shit.” He rolls off the bed and looks around the room for his clothing. 

“What’s wrong?” Grantaire asks. 

“I’m due for soundcheck,” Enjolras explains as he tugs on his jeans.

“Littlefield isn’t that far from here,” Grantaire tells him.

Enjolras breaths a relieved sigh. “That’s good. I have to make sure everything is ready for everyone tonight, not just us.” He pauses and casts a glance at Grantaire. “I’m glad you’ll be there. It means a lot to me.”

Grantaire sags back into the bed. “Of course,” he says to the ceiling.

Then he feels the bed dip beside him, and turns his head to see Enjolras, now fully dressed, leaning down. He presses a kiss to Grantaire’s shoulder. “Come with me?”

“Today?”

“Yeah. I’ll buy you lunch.”

Grantaire smiles. “Cool.”

They have to run to catch the bus that will take them around Prospect Park and up to the edge of Gowanus, but Enjolras sits with his thigh pressed right against Grantaire’s, tangling their fingers together. It’s almost overwhelming, Grantaire thinks, the affection that seems to be out in the open now. 

He wouldn’t trade it for anything.

They make it to soundcheck with minutes to spare. 

Enjolras disappears into the depths of the venue, but comes back with lunch and a kiss for Grantaire. Then he’s off again.

Soon the other bands start to trickle in for their own soundchecks—the Rosa Luxemburg Experience stumbles through the door and rush Grantaire simultaneously, wrapping him in potentially excessive hugs. Marius lumbers in with a box of merch and Cosette’s guitar case balanced on top. Cosette herself is right behind him, whispering with Eponine. 

Soon Combeferre and Courfeyrac have joined them, and it’s almost as though they’ve never been apart. They take over Littlefield’s tiny green room, welcoming the other bands who come and go, the journalists trying to get a few words from everyone, the hangers-on. Eponine perches cutely on Combeferre’s lap while she and Cosette take turns throwing pretzels into each other’s mouths. 

Then Enjolras returns for another kiss, and the stage manager tells them it’s nearly time.

The Rosas are up first, and Musichetta nearly blows the speakers with her powerful voice. The crowd eats it up. She says a few words about Scranton, and then leads them in a rousing chant of “Fuck the police” while security shake their heads fondly. From sidestage, Grantaire sees Bahorel towards the front, grinning until his scar stretches and crinkles. 

A couple acts Grantaire doesn’t know play next, but pretty soon it’s his turn to take the stage. Eponine ruffles his hair and sends him out with a wide smile. 

“Thanks for coming,” Grantaire tells the crowd. “My friend Eponine, she’s going to play for you later—” The crowd interrupts him with a cheer. “She’s one of the people who got hurt in Scranton, and it means a hell of lot to me that you’re here—for her and for everyone else.”

He opens with “Impossible,” then a few more old favorites, before pausing in between songs. The crowd is lively, happy, sincere. He tries the song about Musichetta and Bossuet, and it’s not perfect, but they cheer anyway. 

Grantaire can’t control his smile. By the end of the set, he is sweating through his hair and t-shirt, feeling better than he has in months.

He casts a look sidestage. For the first time since he started playing, he can make out Enjolras’s tall frame and blond hair. Watching him.

“This is going to be my last song,” he says into the mic. “It’s an old one, but I haven’t played it in a while.” He pauses to check his E string, then goes on. “When I first wrote this song, it was a ballad,” he tells the crowd. “And then I heard Friends! and it wasn’t anymore.”

Grantaire launches into “Idylls and Epics” to a near-deafening roar from the crowd. They carry him along through it—he even sees a handful of people in the front singing along—and by the time it’s over, he trips backstage high on adrenaline and happiness.

The Jondrettes do a short set after that. Eponine isn’t at full strength, but they sing the songs of angels anyway, delicate and dear. Grantaire thinks the same thing he thinks every time he sees them, that he’ll never get tired of watching them. 

Then Friends! assemble in the wings and the stage is washed in red light. It feels softer tonight, a warm hug instead of a death knell. 

Grantaire watches the whole thing, his heart in his throat, small smiles and small tears coming back to back to back. He sings softly along, all the songs he knows, feeling everything he’s ever felt when watching them play, and then something new besides. Something small but hopeful, and warm, and nice.

Enjolras pauses, and looks to the crowd. “We’re so glad you’re having fun tonight,” he says, and the crowd cheers. “Benefits are always a weird thing. We want you to have fun, but we also want to take a moment to remember the people who were hurt, the people we’re raising money for tonight. Thanks for coming out for them!” The crowd cheers again, respectful and mannered this time. “Now, we’d never suggest that this was anyone in the audience’s fault. It wasn’t. And we can debate about what happened and who is to blame—” 

“The cops!” someone yells from the back of the crowd.

“But the truth is,” Enjolras continues, unfazed, “we have to look out for each other out there. We’re the only support we have. Be good to each other.”

Applause washes the room as Friends! crash into the beginning of their last song. 

It’s a joyful, wild, stirring blur, and then it’s over. 

Backstage, those watching clap and yell just as loudly as the crowd. Grantaire is swept into hug after hug—Musichetta, Cosette, Eponine, Joly, even Feuilly wraps his arms around him. Then Enjolras comes offstage, sweating and gorgeous, and pulls Grantaire straight into a deep kiss.

The techs and the bands buzz around them, but wrapped tightly against each other, they barely hear it. Enjolras rests his forehead against Grantaire’s. They take a beat like that, Grantaire just breathing it in. Then Enjolras playfully squeezes his ass.

Grantaire laughs, leans into Enjolras’s ear. “You were great,” he says.

“So were you,” Enjolras replies, just as close. “I have a question.”

“Oh?” Grantaire says. “Me too.”

“You first.”

Grantaire leans in even closer. “What are you doing after the afterparty?”

Enjolras laughs, and his soft breath makes Grantaire shiver. “Anything you’ll let me.”

Grantaire ducks his head. “What were you going to ask?”

Enjolras kisses him. “It can wait,” he says when they pull apart. “We have time.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! say hi on [tumblr](http://non.nonmodernist.com)?
> 
> unhooking-the-stars drew this [incredible version of folk singers-verse Grantaire](http://unhooking-the-stars.tumblr.com/post/74698031895/nonnonmodernists-band-au-is-a-good-one) that you absolutely must see
> 
> tambourine made an amazing fanmix that you have to hear - ["the barricades rise"](http://8tracks.com/tambourine/the-barricades-rise)
> 
> idiopathicsmile actually [wrote and recorded "the toad looking upwards"](http://idiopathicsmile.tumblr.com/post/75815200258/ive-been-reading-and-greatly-enjoying-lag-time-by) and it's the greatest thing i've ever heard in my whole life, so please listen to it and go tell her how astounding she is
> 
> also, the song grantaire starts to sing in chapter 12 is an actual song that idiopathicsmile wrote in response to chapter 11, which i then borrowed and put in here. it's called ["end of an era"](http://idiopath-fic-smile.tumblr.com/post/90130241233/well-the-earth-still-circles-the-sun-the-blues) and it's brilliant


End file.
